Today, on the Hippocratic Hustle Podcast, I talk with Stacia Dearmin MD about the taboo topic of medical malpractice. She tells us about her experience regarding her own lawsuit and all of the ways she is working to help other physicians get through their own lawsuits as well. She believes that this topic should be spoken about openly since almost every physician will experience this at some point in their career. Don’t miss out as she shares her top tips for managing the stress and anxiety involved in the litigation process as well.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How Dr. Dearmin got interested in this topic and decided to help other physicians.
• How she recommends minimizing anxiety surrounding medical malpractice.
• Why she thinks it is of utmost importance for physicians to share their experiences surrounding lawsuits with one another.
• What steps you should take when you are notified that you are being sued.
• What you should do and not do if you think an event that occurred could be a potential future lawsuit.
• How to manage your emotions while going through a long term lawsuit.
• What you can do throughout this stressful time to alleviate stress and find balance.
• How the litigation process plays out and how much you need to be involved.
• Why it’s important to be supportive of colleagues going through lawsuits.
• Why she decided to start her coaching business to help physicians one on one.
• How she developed her new course Deposition Magic to teach physicians how to manage the deposition process.

Dr. Stacia Dearmin is passionate about the needs of physicians who face unexpected adverse outcomes and medical malpractice litigation. A speaker, coach and consultant, she founded, “Thrive” in 2017 to provide insight, education and support to other physicians facing one of the toughest experiences many of us will ever have: being sued. She now speaks nationally on this topic and writes a blog on the challenges of recovering after a hard patient outcome and how she survived a malpractice lawsuit. She draws on her personal experience to educate the medical and legal communities, and more importantly, to alleviate physician’s isolation through litigation and invite them to join her in growing. She practices and teaches emergency pediatrics in Ohio.

Quotes from Dr. Stacia Dearmin:

• “Our best way to minimize the risk is to focus in on keeping up to date in our field, practicing good medicine, keeping ourselves healthy, and accepting that when we do work that is so heroic, as to get in there and make difficult decisions in the face of limited information in real time, sometimes things are not going to go as we planned.”
• “Reminding yourself that had you not been the brave kind of individual, who cares so deeply for humanity to go through all the work you went through, to master the body of knowledge you mastered, to then get into the arena, and apply it to real human lives; had you not been that person, you would not be in this situation, and guess what, you are still that person!

Links we discussed in the show:

• Check out Dr. Dearmin’s enlightening website: ThrivePhysician.com.
• Learn all about Dr. Dearmin’s amazing course: Deposition Magic. Don’t forget to use promo code HIPPO HUSTLE for 10% off of her course!

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