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Invited Commentary
November 2016

Learning From Malpractice Litigation

Author Affiliations
  • 1Division of Ophthalmology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 2Department of Ophthalmology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
JAMA Ophthalmol. 2016;134(11):1235-1236. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2016.2981

As physicians, our first duty is to relieve pain and injury and avoid causing or worsening problems in our patients. Most of our professional training, education, and communication, including this journal, contributes to improving our patients’ health. This focus is particularly true regarding pediatric patients who are uniquely vulnerable to lifelong consequences of poor decisions. There are few accounts in the medical literature of patients who were misdiagnosed or poorly treated, or have unnecessarily complicated conditions.

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