The WSJ’s health blog reports on a study conducted by Columbia’s Carol Liebman and others of medical malpractice mediations in New York City. To the surprise of no one who knows anything about mediation, the study finds the mediation works: it lowers the cost of litigation and can help to reduce medical errors, and that attorneys, plaintiffs, hospital representatives, and insurers all report satisfaction with the process. The only problem is that doctors don’t participate. Not a single treating or supervisory physician participated in any of the thirty-one mediations studied. The likely explanations are that the doctors are too busy, find it difficult to meet with injured patients, and are scared of anything that might involve an admission of fault.

That’s a serious problem for both patients and doctors. Research has shown that injured patients and their families are far less interested in monetary compensation than in learning what happened, why it happened, and how it can be prevented in the future, as well as in receiving an apology. If doctors don’t participate, injured patients don’t get what they need, doctors don’t learn how to avoid mistakes in the future, and the cycle of expensive and unproductive medmal litigation churns forward.