The data on allegations and causes of legal action “should serve as a guide to help improve patient safety and decrease professional liability,” he pointed out. “It is critical that physicians take steps to mitigate risk to patients by ensuring robust and adequate training for their agents and by directly supervising procedures. However, the data clearly show that the safest treatments are performed directly by physicians who have had such dedicated training in laser and light sources.”
Dr. Khalifian acknowledged certain limitations of the study, including the fact that the data were extracted from only one legal database and did not include cases settled outside of the justice system through third-party arbitration or other means. “It is also limited by search terms in our query,” he said. “It is possible that some cases did not include the terms we used. Finally, only incomplete information was available for some cases even when supplemented through other resources and additional research.”
He reported having no financial disclosures. Study coauthor Mathew M. Avram, MD, JD, serves on the medical advisory board of Sciton and on the scientific advisory boards of Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Cytrellis, and Allergan. He is also consultant for Merz Aesthetics, Allergan, Soliton, Invasix, and Revance, and has intellectual property with Cytrellis. He also holds stock options with Cytrellis, Invasix, and Zalea.
SOURCE: Khalifian et al. ASLMS 2018.