Evaluation of 27 law suits in urological clinics this decade in Japan

To realize the tendency of judgments for medical malpractice in recent urologic department, 29 judgments (27 clinical cases) of law suit in urologic clinics published on all journals of judgments in Japan this decade were selected and evaluated. All were civil suits, and no criminal cases. All were classified into 4 categories, 6 cases of endoscopic surgery, 6 cases of dialysis, and 4 cases of renal transplantation and the others. 21 judgments were found guilty, and the maximal payment was ¥91,620,000, and the minimal payment was ¥200,000. Of endoscopic surgeries, some sentences require that, the surgeon should stop it and begin on the open surgery as soon as he could, when some troubles happen and it's beyond your own power. And recently some judgments said that a clinician should give a lot of information on diseases and therapies to his patients before performance. On accountabilities for patients about operation or examination, the documents that give good informed consent to patients should be presented to patients and his families.