{"id":9045,"date":"2016-09-23T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit\/"},"modified":"2016-09-23T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T09:00:00","slug":"doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Confesses: I Lied To Protect Colleague In Malpractice Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:16px\">By  <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2016\/09\/23\/494920109\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\">Marshall Allen<\/a><\/span>  <\/p>\n<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2016\/09\/23\/494920109\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2016\/09\/21\/larsaa25edit_custom-42fc8309bbc6d2fa4aeccc516034a5bc91a86201-s1100-c15.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><button>Enlarge this image<\/button><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Dr. Lars Aanning, seen at his home outside Yankton, S.D., said he lied to protect a colleague in a malpractice case. Now, Aanning is a patient safety advocate. <strong>Jay Pickthorn\/AP for ProPublica<\/strong> <strong>hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>toggle caption<\/strong> <span>Jay Pickthorn\/AP for ProPublica<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Almost two decades ago, Dr. Lars Aanning sat on the witness stand in a medical malpractice trial and faced a dilemma.<\/p>\n<p>The South Dakota surgeon had been called to vouch for the expertise of one of his partners whose patient had suffered a stroke and permanent disability after an operation. The problem was that Aanning had, in his own mind, questioned his colleague&#8217;s skill. His partner&#8217;s patients had suffered injuries related to his procedures. But Aanning understood why his partner&#8217;s attorney had called him as a witness: Doctors don&#8217;t squeal on doctors.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney asked the key question: Did Aanning know of any time his partner&#8217;s work had been substandard?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No, never,&#8221; Aanning said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Aanning, in a stunning admission for a medical professional, has a blunter answer: &#8220;I lied.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s impossible to know to what extent Aanning&#8217;s testimony influenced the outcome, the jury sided in favor of his colleague \u2014 and, ever since, Aanning said, he has felt haunted by his decision.<\/p>\n<p>Now, 77 and retired, he decided to write about his choice and why he made it in a recent column for his local newspaper, <em>The Yankton County Observer.<\/em> He also <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/patientharm\/permalink\/1048877861897428\/\">posted the article<\/a> in the ProPublica Patient Safety Facebook group. Aanning, who is a member, called it &#8220;A Surgeon&#8217;s Belated Confession.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From that very moment I knew I had lied \u2014 lied under oath \u2014 and violated all my pledges of professionalism that came with the Doctor of Medicine degree and membership in the [American Medical Association],&#8221; Aanning wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Aanning, who has become an outspoken patient advocate, now assists the medical malpractice attorney who represented the patient in the case in which he lied for his partner.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no way to tell how often doctors lie to protect their colleagues, but ProPublica has found that <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/patient-safety-medical-error-hospital-no-answers\">patients frequently aren&#8217;t told the truth<\/a> when they are harmed. Studies also show that many physicians <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/703679-risk-managers-physicians-and-disclosure-of.html#document\/p2\/a239408\">do not have a favorable view<\/a> of informing patients about mistakes and that health care workers are <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/3108798-AHRQ-2016-Patient-Safety-Culture-Survey.html#document\/p39\/a318067\">afraid to speak up<\/a> if things don&#8217;t seem right. Many doctors and nurses have told ProPublica that they fear retaliation if they speak out about patient safety problems.<\/p>\n<p>ProPublica spoke to Aanning about his unusual column and why he decided to confess all these years later. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why did you tell the lie?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I did it as a matter of course. And I did it because there was a cultural attitude I was immersed in: You viewed all attorneys as a threat, and anything that you did was OK to thwart their efforts to sue your colleagues. I just accepted that as normal. It wasn&#8217;t like, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to lie.&#8221; It was, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to support my colleague.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you feel pressure from your peers to never criticize a colleague?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pressure is the prevailing attitude of the medical profession. The professional societies like the AMA and the American College of Surgeons say you should be a patient advocate at all times. But that goes out the window because here you are, banding together with your peers. Because if you don&#8217;t, you&#8217;ll be like a man without a country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why are you telling the truth now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m retired now. The big benefit is they can&#8217;t hurt me, but I can&#8217;t go to the clinic for any help. All my doctors are out of town. I came to America from Norway in &#8217;47 and grew up in New York. I&#8217;ve always been a rabble-rouser. This testifying falsely at this trial was not like me, so it stands out. It&#8217;s not how I do stuff.<\/p>\n<p>I also told the truth about my lie because I have been helping some of these plaintiffs&#8217; lawyers with their cases. It seems that the courtroom is not the arena for adjudication of medical right or wrong. I shared my story to give an explicit example of why you can&#8217;t always rely on physician testimony in court. I think that&#8217;s the big reason. There&#8217;s got to be a different way to help people who have been medically harmed. Looking to the legal system is like mixing oil and water.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you feel like it&#8217;s your fault the patient lost the case?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t touched on that question. It would make it painful for me. I would be moved to tears if that whole case revolved around just my testimony. I was on the stand so briefly. But cumulatively between what I said and the other testimony \u2014 it was never a level playing field for the plaintiff. People don&#8217;t recognize it. How the judges don&#8217;t recognize it and the system doesn&#8217;t recognize it is beyond me. It&#8217;s something I&#8217;m coming to grips with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you thought about talking to the patient&#8217;s family?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The attorney said something about meeting the patient&#8217;s widow in his office, or something like that. I worry about whether my testimony weighed on the final verdict or not. It&#8217;s something that you just have to face up to. It&#8217;s too late to deflect it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you feel any better or worse now that you&#8217;ve gone public with your moral failure?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not altruistic. I&#8217;m not a crusader. I got into writing this column accidentally, so I just kind of find myself in this position. I get a great satisfaction out of defining what I see and writing about it. I hope nobody&#8217;s going to come back at me and accuse me of bad conduct. Although that&#8217;s what it was. I felt bad about it.<\/p>\n<p><em>ProPublica is interested in hearing from patients who have been harmed while undergoing medical care, through its<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/getinvolved\/item\/have-you-been-harmed-in-a-medical-facility-share-your-story\">Patient Harm Questionnaire<\/a> <em>and<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/patientharm\/\">Patient Safety Facebook Group<\/a>. You can follow Marshall Allen on Twitter: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/marshall_allen\">@marshall_allen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/\">Let&#8217;s block ads!<\/a><\/strong> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/fivefilters\/block-ads\/wiki\/There-are-no-acceptable-ads\">(Why?)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source:: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2016\/09\/23\/494920109\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Doctor Confesses: I Lied To Protect Colleague In Malpractice Suit\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2016\/09\/23\/494920109\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2016\/09\/23\/494920109\/doctor-confesses-i-lied-to-protect-colleague-in-malpractice-suit?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2016\/09\/21\/larsaa25edit_custom-42fc8309bbc6d2fa4aeccc516034a5bc91a86201-s1100-c15.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><button>Enlarge this image<\/button><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Dr. Lars Aanning, seen at his home outside Yankton, S.D., said he lied to protect a colleague in a malpractice case. Now, Aanning is a patient safety advocate. <strong>Jay Pickthorn\/AP for ProPublica<\/strong> <strong>hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>toggle caption<\/strong> <span>Jay Pickthorn\/AP for ProPublica<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Almost two decades ago, Dr. Lars Aanning sat on the witness stand in a medical malpractice trial and faced a dilemma.<\/p>\n<p>The South Dakota surgeon had been called to vouch for the expertise of one of his partners whose patient had suffered a stroke and permanent disability after an operation. The problem was that Aanning had, in his own mind, questioned his colleague&#8217;s skill. His partner&#8217;s patients had suffered injuries related to his procedures. But Aanning understood why his partner&#8217;s attorney had called him as a witness: Doctors don&#8217;t squeal on doctors.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney asked the key question: Did Aanning know of any time his partner&#8217;s work had been substandard?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No, never,&#8221; Aanning said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Aanning, in a stunning admission for a medical professional, has a blunter answer: &#8220;I lied.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s impossible to know to what extent Aanning&#8217;s testimony influenced the outcome, the jury sided in favor of his colleague \u2014 and, ever since, Aanning said, he has felt haunted by his decision.<\/p>\n<p>Now, 77 and retired, he decided to write about his choice and why he made it in a recent column for his local newspaper, <em>The Yankton County Observer.<\/em> He also <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/patientharm\/permalink\/1048877861897428\/\">posted the article<\/a> in the ProPublica Patient Safety Facebook group. Aanning, who is a member, called it &#8220;A Surgeon&#8217;s Belated Confession.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From that very moment I knew I had lied \u2014 lied under oath \u2014 and violated all my pledges of professionalism that came with the Doctor of Medicine degree and membership in the [American Medical Association],&#8221; Aanning wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Aanning, who has become an outspoken patient advocate, now assists the medical malpractice attorney who represented the patient in the case in which he lied for his partner.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no way to tell how often doctors lie to protect their colleagues, but ProPublica has found that <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/patient-safety-medical-error-hospital-no-answers\">patients frequently aren&#8217;t told the truth<\/a> when they are harmed. Studies also show that many physicians <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/703679-risk-managers-physicians-and-disclosure-of.html#document\/p2\/a239408\">do not have a favorable view<\/a> of informing patients about mistakes and that health care workers are <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/3108798-AHRQ-2016-Patient-Safety-Culture-Survey.html#document\/p39\/a318067\">afraid to speak up<\/a> if things don&#8217;t seem right. Many doctors and nurses have told ProPublica that they fear retaliation if they speak out about patient safety problems.<\/p>\n<p>ProPublica spoke to Aanning about his unusual column and why he decided to confess all these years later. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why did you tell the lie?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I did it as a matter of course. And I did it because there was a cultural attitude I was immersed in: You viewed all attorneys as a threat, and anything that you did was OK to thwart their efforts to sue your colleagues. I just accepted that as normal. It wasn&#8217;t like, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to lie.&#8221; It was, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to support my colleague.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you feel pressure from your peers to never criticize a colleague?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pressure is the prevailing attitude of the medical profession. The professional societies like the AMA and the American College of Surgeons say you should be a patient advocate at all times. But that goes out the window because here you are, banding together with your peers. Because if you don&#8217;t, you&#8217;ll be like a man without a country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why are you telling the truth now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m retired now. The big benefit is they can&#8217;t hurt me, but I can&#8217;t go to the clinic for any help. All my doctors are out of town. I came to America from Norway in &#8217;47 and grew up in New York. I&#8217;ve always been a rabble-rouser. This testifying falsely at this trial was not like me, so it stands out. It&#8217;s not how I do stuff.<\/p>\n<p>I also told the truth about my lie because I have been helping some of these plaintiffs&#8217; lawyers with their cases. It seems that the courtroom is not the arena for adjudication of medical right or wrong. I shared my story to give an explicit example of why you can&#8217;t always rely on physician testimony in court. I think that&#8217;s the big reason. There&#8217;s got to be a different way to help people who have been medically harmed. Looking to the legal system is like mixing oil and water.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you feel like it&#8217;s your fault the patient lost the case?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t touched on that question. It would make it painful for me. I would be moved to tears if that whole case revolved around just my testimony. I was on the stand so briefly. But cumulatively between what I said and the other testimony \u2014 it was never a level playing field for the plaintiff. People don&#8217;t recognize it. How the judges don&#8217;t recognize it and the system doesn&#8217;t recognize it is beyond me. It&#8217;s something I&#8217;m coming to grips with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you thought about talking to the patient&#8217;s family?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The attorney said something about meeting the patient&#8217;s widow in his office, or something like that. I worry about whether my testimony weighed on the final verdict or not. It&#8217;s something that you just have to face up to. It&#8217;s too late to deflect it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you feel any better or worse now that you&#8217;ve gone public with your moral failure?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not altruistic. I&#8217;m not a crusader. I got into writing this column accidentally, so I just kind of find myself in this position. I get a great satisfaction out of defining what I see and writing about it. I hope nobody&#8217;s going to come back at me and accuse me of bad conduct. Although that&#8217;s what it was. I felt bad about it.<\/p>\n<p><em>ProPublica is interested in hearing from patients who have been harmed while undergoing medical care, through its<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/getinvolved\/item\/have-you-been-harmed-in-a-medical-facility-share-your-story\">Patient Harm Questionnaire<\/a> <em>and<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/patientharm\/\">Patient Safety Facebook Group<\/a>. You can follow Marshall Allen on Twitter: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/marshall_allen\">@marshall_allen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/\">Let&#8217;s block ads!<\/a><\/strong> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/fivefilters\/block-ads\/wiki\/There-are-no-acceptable-ads\">(Why?)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}