If you are a doctor, you can probably look forward to at least one medical malpractice lawsuit brought against you over the course of your career. And if you happen to practice in a high-risk specialty, your chances of being sued only rise. Most of the time though, even when medical malpractice cases result in  verdicts against doctors, they aren’t called upon to actually pay anything. That’s what it says in a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, that looked at more than 40,000 physicians across the country, found that seven out of every ten doctors anywhere can expect to be sued for malpractice at least once; but only about one out of ten actually end up paying anything at all.

This really does put into perspective how doctors complain about how they can’t concentrate on practicing medicine when they are always being sued. While the rate at which lawsuits are brought against doctors really is high, they don’t ever have to worry about being found guilty. But it isn’t just being found guilty that doctors have to worry about. They need to worry about preparing to defend themselves they have to worry about spending on it. Since your typical lawsuit takes about five years to go through the court, that’s five unpleasant years spent by the doctor.

There are certain specialties that are more risky as far as medical malpractice cases go. A neuro surgeon or a cardiac surgeon usually faces a 20% chance of facing medical malpractice cases at least once in his career. A pediatrician or a psychiatrist faces the lowest risk of such occurrences. When a doctor does lose and a lawsuit is brought against him, usually on average, the payout is worth about a quarter million dollars. While that is not an inconsiderable sum, this isn’t close to the millions of dollars that golddiggers are reputed to try to hit doctors for.

In general, it’s quite clear that medical malpractice cases, while they do run rampant, don’t result in the kind of award often that it would make it difficult for doctors to practice at reasonable expense. All these lawsuits do mean that doctors try very hard to be on their guard all the time though. They practice defensive medicine – always trying to practice medicine for the best defense possible in a court of law should they be sued, instead of practicing to be efficient. They are always ordering all kinds of tests whether they are necessary or not, and doctors routinely try to stay away from risky procedures.

It can be rather difficult to determine whether it’s a good thing or not that people are given the right to sue when things go wrong for them. On the one hand, this allows them to force their doctors to be careful. On the other hand, it can make doctors so careful that they won’t even take necessary risks.