Today, physician’s malpractice in Iran has been increased due to economic slump and financial problems and reduced people’s general incomes. Therefore, many people want to compensate these property damages and lack of finance with complaints from physicians. One of the most important occupational challenges of physicians is patients’ discontent and complaints (Zengin et al., 2014) which are referred to a forensic medicine center and also its sequences in patients’ lives which may take place everywhere in the health care systems (Velsor et al., 2018; Obama, 2016). Health care systems are defined through dependence on human operators who work with uncertainty, complicated cumulative technology, and different kinds of facilities (Mossialos et al., 2016). Errors and legal issues are inevitable and may have serious effects on patients’ lives (Popescu, 2015). These sequences not only waste the physician’s time and energy (Oshel & Levitt, 2016) but also are a stressing situation that any physician with any academic degree and expertise may face during her/his professional life (Castro et al., 2018).
Medical malpractice includes diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and treatment of diseases. Namely, malpractice can occur in the first referral of a patient to a doctor or it can occur during management and treatment of a patient’s problem or disease (Gaither & Copp, 2016). In other words, malpractice is a failure and lack of competence and knowledge of physicians in the diagnosis and treatment in a standard level (Jimenez-Corona et al., 2006). Medical malpractice includes different types as lack of skill, lack of respect to the governmental system, imprudence, and inconsiderateness. Lack of skill can result from being amateur and inexperienced, or insufficient boon from medical knowledge and updated medical sciences (Traina, 2009). Lack of respect to the governmental system means disregarding of established rules by the ministry of health and/or health deputy which can occur due to negligence or incompetence (King & Crewe, 2014). Imprudence is defined as giving up an action due to negligence, delinquency, and forgetfulness (Hamilton, 2016). In fact, it means that a person has done something that should not be done (Arhan et al., 2009). Inconsiderateness means lack of awareness of a physician of an obligation which he/she did not perform (Nakanishi, 2014). In the case of an error, patients tend to learn about a medical error if it happens or they want to know the cause of complication, and acquire ways to prevent its recurrence (Madea & Preuß, 2009).
Nowadays, the rate of dissatisfaction and complaints of the patients is increasing despite physicians and therapeutic staff’s efforts and use of available facilities (Friele et al., 2015). According to the statistics of the USA, in 1970, 3 to 4% complaints were recorded against physicians. In 1980, this rate increased to 20%, and in the year 1990, it reached to 25% (Dyrbye & Shanafelt, 2016; Kermode-Scott, 2005). Also, 11 states of the USA show that the data of medical malpractices since 1993 to 2002 increased by 18%. In Italy, the hospitals were against claims of medical malpractice beside physicians in offices. Yet, the number of confirmed cases has been declared about mistreatments of physicians in private offices more than those working in hospitals specially for esthetic medicine (Dyrbye & Shanafelt, 2016). In most cases, autopsy proves that medical malpractice has not taken place and also there is no real scientific connection between the suspect misuse and the patient death (Casali et al., 2014).
Malpractice in Iran has increased as economic condition has worsened and economic and financial sanctions have been imposed against the government by other countries. On the other hand, in Iran there are not widespread studies in the case of internal medical malpractice field, so this study aimed to estimate the magnitude of the internal malpractice field and its five related subspecialties and also other fields’ specialists that receive complaints simultaneously.