You know, they’re difficult to prove for a number of reasons.  I think the biggest thing is that bad things happen, and bad things happen in surgeries, bad things happen in hospitals, and they happen all the time, and they’re not always the result of someone’s negligence.  That’s why doctors go through the informed consent process.  When you go to have surgery, they explain to you the risks of that surgery.

What that means is professionals realize that bad things can happen, even with the utmost care that’s taken.  So, doctors always have that as a fall back position, that “Listen, this was a bad result.  We admit it was a bad result.  But it could have happened regardless.”  And so that’s one reason why it’s very difficult to prove.

The other thing is that people don’t want to believe doctors make mistakes.  Because they see doctors all the time.  And so they kind of put doctors on a pedestal.  They don’t want to find them negligent.  They think they use their best efforts.  Doctors use their judgment.  These are themes that play out in cases all the time and make it very difficult to win, but no impossible.