• J Hannappel, B Weber, and U Smentkowski.
• Gutachterkommission für ärztliche Behandlungsfehler bei der Ärztekammer Nordrhein, Tersteegenstraße 9, 40474 Düsseldorf, Deutschland. josef.hannappel@t-online.de
• Urologe A. 2012 Nov 1; 51 (11): 1509-22.

AbstractFollowing a description of the structure and function of the expert commission for medical malpractice of the North Rhine medical council, important legal technical terms and the consequences, such as the definition of accusable medical malpractice and severe (in legal terms gross) negligence will be presented. The article reports on the legal consequences of the lack of informed consent, on the significance of insufficient informed consent and under which conditions a transfer of liability becomes valid. From the statistical information in the archives of the expert commission it can be seen that in processes against urologists approximately 31% of urologists in private practice were affected compared to 69% of hospital urologists. Approximately 20% involved accusations of false diagnosis and 80% involved accusations of false treatment. Of the processes involving urological diagnostic errors prostate cancer was at the forefront, followed by processes involving delayed or falsely diagnosed bladder cancer. For processes due to operative treatment errors prostate cancer also occupied first place, followed by accusations of treatment errors involving penile and urethral operations. A differentiated presentation of processes involving non-operative treatment errors revealed an accumulation of accusations for mistakes in the treatment of urolithiasis, in medicinal treatment and also in tumor therapy. Following a description of typical individual cases, indications for avoidance of legal proceedings will be given.

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