Malpractice Crisis, Urban Sprawl Means More Medevacs in
Pennsylvania
From the always-interesting Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com, we
learn it's an ill wind that blows no good. The ill wind is the
malpractice crisis in Pennsylvania, and the beneficiaries, apart
from the usual (both plaintiffs' and defense lawyers), include
medevac helicopter operators.
As the litigation onslaught and the insurance rates it brings
destroy more and more medical practices and drive more and more
surgeons and trauma centers out of business, more surgical patients
and accident victims need to be airlifted to distant hospitals.
"Emergency flights in
Chester County went from 123 in 2001, the year before Brandywine
Hospital, near Coatesville, closed its trauma center, to 662 last
year," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The last full-time neurosurgeon in Chester County left in 2003,
according to the newspaper. Neurosurgeons in the Keystone State
face malpractice premiums of over a quarter of a million dollars a
year; according to figures in the Inquirer, there are 29.3% fewer
of these specialists in statewide now (152) than there were ten
years ago (215).
One apparent result is a boom in helicopter operations -- and
operators. Chester County has gone from one medical helicopter
operator to six over the years. That closely tracks the change in
operations, from 123 to 662, since the liability crisis caused the
closure of the trauma center.
However, not everyone agrees that the problem is entirely caused
by Pennsylvania's long-running liability crunch. Crowded emergency
rooms are another factor, as patients are flown to less-busy
hospitals; and the effects of urban sprawl and its attendant
traffic congestion are also factors. In Montgomery County, where
medevac flights are up about two thirds since 2001, the director of
emergency services puts most of the blame on traffic congestion,
which prevents ground ambulances from getting patients to the
county trauma center in the lifesaving "golden hour" after
injury.
Any way you slice it, that means that a shortage of doctors
means no shortage of opportunity for helicopter pilots and flight
nurses. Ironically, we've been hearing anecdotes that major Part
141 training operations have been getting physicians among their
career-changers. But that doesn't mean that young eagles
necessarily ought to start aiming their training towards flying
medevac flights. The operators generally prefer retired military
pilots, who are often still young and are attuned to high-pressure,
all-weather operations in demanding conditions.