limping

Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir

In another post to this Blog, I lamented both the bias against any plaintiff and the especial bias against any plaintiff suing a doctor or hospital for medical negligence:

Virginia’s not being on this list of “judicial hellholes” is no surprise to Virginia judges or the trial lawyers for the plaintiff and defense. Each of them knows that an injured plaintiff in Virginia has one hand tied behind his back and two strikes against him when he first comes to bat in court. Candidly, this does not apply to victims of medical malpractice in Virginia, who have two hands and two feet tied-up, and who can be seen limping-up to the plate and then simply heading back to the dugout without taking a swing.

In the January 2, 2007 issue of The New York Times , Jane Brody recounts the extent of the problem of medication errors in America:

Medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, injuring or killing at least 1.5 million people a year and incurring at least $3.5 billion a year in extra hospital costs alone, according to a report issued in July by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. This was the instituteas second report on the subject, and the committee that compiled it stated that insufficient progress had been made since its first report, aTo Err Is Human,a was issued in 1999.

If there are 1.5 million Americans every year being injured or killed by medication errors, logic tells us that this fate befalls many thousands of Virginians every year. Despite the plaintive cries of the insurers of doctors and hospitals that medical-malpractice verdicts are won and “won big” too often by injured plaintiffs, there are few medical-malpractice verdicts for patients in Virginia, and fewer still based upon medication errors.

This begs the facetious question in the title above, “Why are there no medication errors in Virginia?” The answer lies in the simple but stark difference between the frequent reality of medication errors and the infrequent reality of a jury’s holding a medical professional accountable.

The author of this New York Times article cited her own personal experience:

A similar error befell my father at a leading New York hospital. After weeks of intensive care following a massive heart attack, he was sent home with medication from the hospital pharmacy to prevent his body from rejecting his damaged heart. He was about to take the first pill when my mother noticed that the name on the vial was Mrs. Rosenberg, not Sidney Brody, and that it contained estrogen, not the prednisone my father needed.

If we want to make headway in making careless medication errors like this unacceptable, our jurors must be prepared to let go of the iconic worship of those who save us or make us feel better. Our jurors must simply be willing to hold these doctors and hospitals, like everyone else, to a standard of reasonable care. We expect our doctors and hospitals to treat us and our loved ones with reasonable care, and to be accountable for doing so. Should we accept anything less for our “brothers and sisters” in the community?

No, Virginia, your jury verdicts for injured men, women and children are not excessive or “out-of-control.”

The American Tort Reform Association — “ATRA” — has published its list of “Judicial Hellholes” of 2006 … and, Virginia, you are not on its list. You are not even an “Honorable Mention,” and you are not even on the “Watch List.” One sure way to get on the list? Allow runaway jury verdicts.

No doubt Virginia’s absence from this list will come as a great surprise to Virginia jurors who long have been besieged with the cries of ATRA and the insurance companies and corporations to the effect that jury awards for the injured are “everywhere” out-of-control.

The insurance companies have dropped tons of propaganda over the landscape of America: propaganda that tells prospective jurors that every plaintiff is a malingering fraud and that every plaintiff’s lawyer is an “ambulance-chaser” … propaganda that does not tell prospective jurors that the insurance companies’ media blitz over the past twenty (20) or so years has saved them untold millions of dollars that under the law should have gone to compensate millions of victims of serious injury and wrongful death.

Virginia jurors still believe — against all the evidence — that runaway verdicts for the injured are rampant in Virginia and that they must take corrective action to even the scales of justice. Yet jurors understandably have no knowledge of actual jury verdicts in Virginia because the insurance companies that tell them of the horror stories of isolated runaway verdicts do not tell them the rest of the truth — of the flood of inadequate verdicts.

How do we know that jurors still believe that runaway verdicts are rampant? First, jurors tell us so after their verdicts. Second, ask a juror how many times he has heard of an inadequate verdict. His response: “never.”

Virginia jurors still believe that plaintiff’s lawyers are the promulgators of all of the lawsuit abuse. Yet Virginia judges and trial lawyers know that frivolous defenses in Virginia are at least as common as frivolous lawsuits. Ask a juror how many times he has heard of a frivolous defense. His response: “never.”

Virginia’s not being on this list of “judicial hellholes” is no surprise to Virginia judges or the trial lawyers for the plaintiff and defense. Each of them knows that an injured plaintiff in Virginia has one hand tied behind his back and two strikes against him when he first comes to bat in court. Candidly, this does not apply to victims of medical malpractice in Virginia, who have two hands and two feet tied-up, and who can be seen limping-up to the plate and then simply heading back to the dugout without taking a swing.

What can the Virginia juror do about this? Simple: rid yourself — honestly rid yourself — of the insurance companies’ propaganda … and simply listen to the facts of each case and follow the law in that case. This guarantees favor to no one … except “Lady Justice.” The law does not provide for your allegiance to the insurance companies’ self-interested propaganda. The law provides — no, demands — your allegiance to Lady Justice.

Heas having trouble leaving the limp behind. Hugh Laurie, ending a celebrated eight-season run on aHousea tomorrow night, has become positively Pavlovian in response to the command, aAction!a

aI have to remind myself not to limp,a says Laurie. After portraying the irascible, pain-killer addicted lead character, Dr. Gregory House, for so many years, Laurie now has to think about walking normally.

aI did have one very peculiar experience in my first acting job outside of aHousea [in the 2008 feature film aStreet Kingsa]. When the director said, aAction!,a I started limping. And that may go on. Itas an odd state of affairs, I grant you.a

He says this in his mellifluous British accent, a far cry from the harsh, grating American inflection he employs on the show to berate and manipulate his team of brilliant diagnosticians. Ask him if that crooked shuffling or leaning heavily on a cane has wreaked havoc with his body and he says no.

aI think my body was already in a state of havoc, so I canat really blame the show,a he says. aAlthough Iad be happy to try and blame the show. I think there would be a very profitable lawsuit in that. But no, I think I was already headed for an inevitable slope of decay and decline.a

Not that Laurie would know. Much to the dismay of aHousea creator and executive producer David Shore, Laurie hasnat been to a doctor since the show started. That would be eight years ago, and it only happened then because the production company mandated physicals for insurance purposes.

aHeas a very healthy man,a says Shore. aHe claims to never get colds. But heas not setting a good example for people out there.a

Shore is a man who thinks a lot about illness. He needed enough of them to get through 177 episodes dramatizing the strangest diseases on Earth, including spinal meningioma or ergot poisoning, which one of Houseas patients contracted after simply eating organic rye bread.

aI remember trying to put the medicine together for the pilot and thinking, aOh, God, this is impossible. I can maybe get three episodes out of this.a And I remember [executive producer] Paul Attanasio saying to me, aYou only need one right now.a a

aThe bigger challenge was finding the matching human condition to go with the medical condition,a says Shore. aWe needed to have a patient who had something unusual in their attitude, or their philosophy or whatever, that would set up House to comment. That, to me, was what the shows were all about.a

Does he remember one symptom in particular? aThe police officer who couldnat stop laughing,a says Shore. aThatas good dramatically.a

As for Laurie, he claims not to remember any of the dread diseases on the show. aTheyare all my children and I donat play favorites,a he says.

There is only one disease that is foremost in his mind as the series comes to an end: Cancer. Specifically, the malignant tumor now threatening the life of Houseas only real friend, Dr. James Wilson, the oncologist played by Robert Sean Leonard. aAn oncologist with cancer,a says Wilson. aOf all the things that could be killing me. Itas like the universe giving me the big middle finger!a Laurie, whose character tries to save Wilsonas life, says heas proud of the way House handles it, aalthough there will be some fumbles and dangerous missteps along the way.a

Dr. House set the bar for televisionas new brand of antihero, a repellent character not afraid to be disliked. But Laurie says that over the course of the series, House has changed a slightly. aPeople canat massively change in television drama; otherwise youare making a different show. And youad have to start building different sets,a he says. aBut heas changed in the way heas expressed his friendship, love and need for Wilson, which was a great unspoken force in his life. Itas now become a spoken force.

aOne of the things Iam most proud of is that we never got to the point where I thought: Now weare running out of things to say, now weare just getting silly, and theyare gonna give House a puppy and heas gonna start working in a soup kitchen. He remains as relentlessly, defiantly cynical and embittered as ever he had been.a

Everyoneas lips are sealed about the final episode, which airs after a one-hour series retrospective, other than to say some old characters are returning, including Olivia Wilde as Dr. Remy aThirteena Hadley, Amber Tamblyn as medical student Martha Masters and Kal Penn as Dr. Lawrence Kutner. Missing in action is Lisa Edelstein, who could not be persuaded to return as Houseas former boss and ex-lover, Dr. Lisa Cuddy.

aI was hoping,a says Shore. aBut it did not work out.a

The only other revelation is the title of the final episode, which is, provocatively, aEverybody Dies.a Fan sites are abuzz with theories about who will succumb to what. Says Shore, who is unapologetic about being stingy with information, aIt rhymes with the title of the pilot, which was aEverybody Lies.a I hate to give any more away. There were a number of titles considered, each of which was probably as good, but what put this one over the edge was the poetic nature of it. And it is appropriate for this last episode.a

He admits that the pressure is on to deliver a satisfying conclusion to a series that, at its height, attracted 20 million viewers a week and made Laurie the highest-paid actor in a dramatic series, raking in an estimated $700,000 per week.

aIam still feeling the pressure,a says Shore, aand still questioning the decision we made. But I feel like it was the right choice and weave got a story for the end that feels right. I fully expect to get judged, because thatas what happens.a

Shore says he told Laurie about the ending several months prior to shooting the episode, and that Laurie was onboard. Other cast members, including Jesse Spencer, who plays Dr. Robert Chase, had to be a little more devious to find out how the show would end. aThey keep the storylines from us until the last second,a says Spencer. aBut I got it out of them. Thereas a brilliant thing called alcohol. If you can get a writer drunk, you can get the story line.a

Did he like what he heard? aIt felt like it was the right way to do it,a says Spencer, aand the right time, too. We couldave gone another year, but I think it was probably better to wrap it up. I think after a while, the passion wouldave dried up. So it was the right time to call it a day.a

Not that saying goodbye was easy. aIt was very surreal,a says Shore. aBecause youare just working. You got a job to do. And then somebody yells out, aThatas a series wrap for Jesse Spencer.a And you go, aOh my God.a And my kids came to visit, which was also strange, because they donat come that often. My 15-year-old had been there for the pilot, when he was 7 years old. And in my head, seeing that difference, in who he was, it just reminded me of how long itas been. And then you keep hearing people call out, aSeries wrap for Omar Epps. Series wrap for Hugh Laurie.a a

Shore remembers the day Laurie came in to audition. He would prove to be an unlikely choice: An Englishman, schooled in comedy and best known for lighter fare, such as the long-running British series aJeeves and Wooster.a But Laurie, adopting an American accent, was completely believable as an emotionally and physically damaged healer.

aHe just completely stood out,a says Shore. aThe character just came alive when he read.a

Laurie wasnat convinced any of it was going to last. He swears it took him two years to unpack his suitcases, even after spending long months away from his wife, theater administrator Jo Green, and their three teenage children, Charlie, Bill and Rebecca.

aWhat I signed up for was 16 days, a pilot in Vancouver,a says Laurie. aThe following eight years nobody a nobody a could have predicted.a

Epps, who plays Dr. Eric Foreman, says wrapping up the series afelt, emotionally, like graduation. It felt like we accomplished what we set out to accomplish. House as a character, with all of his personality flaws and ill-mannered ways, he had one thing that he was constantly seeking, and thatas the truth. People want that in life. They want it raw and uncut. And House was brilliant in doing that.a

For his part, Shore wants to thank the fans. He also has a shout-out to his star, who is limping off into the sunset and about to embark on a world tour with his blues band. aGo to the doctor and get a physical!a

HOUSE: SWAN SONG

Monday, 8 p.m., Fox

HOUSE: EVERYBODY DIES

Monday, 9 p.m., Fox

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