The Florida Medical Association distributed a waiver form demanding that patients waive their legal rights before being treated for their ailments. This once again makes it clear that the Florida Medical Association and the doctors’ insurance companies are more interested in preventing patients’ access to the courthouse than preventing medical malpractice from occurring. The only question is whether your doctor or will be so callous as to present you with a waiver to protect him or her should they carelessly or recklessly injure you. The waiver that is being circulated to doctors throughout Florida would prevent you or your family from recovering full damages even if your doctor was drunk and injured you, or recklessly operated on your wrong body part or gave you a medicine that you told your doctor you were allergic to and you died from it. Instead of dealing with the 98,000 preventable deaths caused by medical errors each year, the Florida Medical Association is encouraging doctors throughout Florida to use this Waiver to eliminate YOUR rights and those of YOUR family should they recklessly disregard your safety.

So what should you do if your doctor cares more about protecting himself than caring for your safety or that of your family? Initially, you should refuse to sign it. This may be all that is necessary. If you are advised that you must sign it, ask to speak to the doctor. Ask your doctor,” Why should you be able to carelessly injure me or my family and not be fully responsible for all the harm that you cause? Does that seem fair to you?” “If you gave me the wrong prescription and killed me, are you telling me that $250,000 is all my life is worth? If you plan on treating me carefully and supervising your staff should you be worried about committing malpractice on me?”