Preventing Ethical Disasters in the Practice of Medicine, United States, 2008-2016 (ICPSR 38314)
Version Date: Nov 3, 2022 View help for published
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James M. DuBois, Washington University (St. Louis, Mo.). School of Medicine
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38314.v1
Version V1
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Researchers researched and analyzed 280 cases of serious wrongdoing in medicine involving three kinds of violations: improper prescribing of controlled substances (IPCS), sexual abuse of patients (SAP), and unnecessary invasive procedures (UIP). They focused on these three types of wrongdoing because each is traumatizing to patients, causing physical and emotional harm, financial loss, and sometimes death. They are often the cause of major disciplinary actions by medical boards.
The methodological approach involved identifying potential cases of serious wrongdoing through systematic literature reviews of court records, medical boards reports, newspaper articles, and online materials for each case. Using a detailed codebook, researchers performed descriptive coding of the literature and used a criminal law framework to identify the salient individual and environmental factors that predicted motive, means, and opportunity (MMO) for each case. Within each of the three types of wrongdoing, they identified typologies of cases using qualitative analysis.
Finally, researchers held a working group meeting with experts to reach a consensus on how findings can inform medical education, policies, and oversight practices to reduce the rates and the duration of serious wrongdoing.
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This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, some of the data files in this collection are restricted from general dissemination. To obtain these restricted files researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of a Restricted Data Use Agreement.
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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine cases of serious medical wrongdoing in order to reduce the rates and the duration of future serious wrongdoing. Researchers predicted motive, means, and opportunity (MMO) for each case. Within each of the three types of wrongdoing, they identified typologies of cases using qualitative analysis.
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The methodology involved conducting literature reviews to discover and investigate cases involving types of wrongdoing (i.e., improper prescribing of controlled substances, sexual abuse of patients, and unnecessary invasive procedures). Researchers then coded case attributes using an Excel spreadsheet and developed a criminal law theory for each of the 280 cases of serious wrongdoing in medicine. To develop a theory, they identified the factors that provided motive, means, and opportunity for each case. In the case of improper prescribing they randomly selected 100 cases from those identified; with the other two topics, they analyzed data on 100% of cases identified.
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Physicians working in the United States who committed serious ethical violations between January 1, 2008 and May 27th, 2016. Cases involved behaviors that could cause direct financial, emotional or physical harm to patients and had to have been described in at least 5 independent records.
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Court records
News articles
Medical board reports
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