Vulnerability: Respect & Protection – Commentary on A New Perspective

Abstract: Introduction: Legal medicine has become ‘patient-centric’ with search engines provoking self-diagnoses and challenges. This paper examines potential to create physician vulnerability and need to protect reputations. Doctor Vulnerability: Not satisfying patient expectation may generate complaints and social media to attack doctors forcing them to seek legal remedies. Courts hold patients accountable for dishonest, online comments, yet the internet encourages patients to litigate against health professionals with whom (s)he is dissatisfied. Can a Physician Be Sued for Negligence by a Patient He Never Met?: Recent cases confirm that a doctor can be sued, even if the relevant clinician never met the patient, if his/her action (or inaction) establishes a doctor-patient relationship. Response to Doctor Vulnerability: A plastic surgeon was awarded damages following defamation, despite his refusal to treat the patient. Justice Rothman held a patient accountable for posting dishonest, online comments about a surgeon’s professional conduct and also awarded damages to an orthopaedic surgeon experiencing similar vitriolic sentiment online. The USA case, Carlotti v. Petta, successfully sued a former patient – receiving a jury verdict of $12 million in December 2011. On 2 May 2025, a large Sydney conference of medical practitioners addressed perceived bias by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), in Australia. Conclusions: Medical intervention has changed from doctor – centric to patient-centric. Search engines are influencing medical management with patients holding preconceived opinions, to which doctors are expected to abide and failure to do so providing potential for vexatious complaints. Doctors are starting to fight back.