Last week, my girlfriend and I decided to go check out a movie at the Lennox. I wanted to see “Blade: Trinity.” She wanted to see “Ocean’s Twelve.” So we ended up settling on “The Incredibles.” Now, going into the theater, I figured I’d see your usual kiddie movie, where the moral of the story is to be nice to each other or something like that. Instead, I was surprised to see that the story line was centered on a number of frivolous lawsuits that put super heroes out of work. Do I sense an overriding adult theme that the kids might not notice?

Let’s think about this one for a minute. We live in a country where a woman sued McDonald’s because she spilled hot coffee on herself, and she won over a million dollars. What did she want? Cold coffee?

Another frivolous lawsuit involved a bunch of overweight people who sued McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC. Cesar Barbar, one of the men who filed the suit, claimed, “I always thought (fast food) was good for you. I never thought there was anything wrong with it. The fast food industry has wrecked my life.” Hey Cesar, your problem is your reluctance to get off of your couch and exercise. If you can claim that you thought fast food was healthy while keeping a straight face, I’ll be shocked. In my opinion, if you file a lawsuit like this you’re just a lazy bum trying to make a quick buck and deserve no respect.

But all of this pales in comparison to the rash of frivolous lawsuits that are facing doctors today. All of the cases mentioned above really only affect big corporations and provide us with something to shake our heads and complain about. However, when it comes to something serious, such as the people who care for our health, it’s no longer funny.

The fact is that malpractice insurance has become so high in recent years that the number of doctors in America is slowly decreasing. Some of the best doctors in the country pay more for malpractice insurance than they receive for their annual income. I personally know no less than four good doctors who have been affected by the rash of lawsuits.

Two of them told their own kids not to go into medicine because of all of the lawsuits. Another is no longer a working doctor. She was a well-known gynecologist but saw the price of malpractice insurance in Texas skyrocket and decided enough was enough. The fourth doctor is an anesthesiologist in Cleveland. He was once sued by a woman who had received treatment at a hospital where he had never practiced. She apparently picked his name off of a list of practicing anesthesiologists. Yet, it took him a month to get the case thrown out. A month during which, I’m sure, he could have been worrying about far more important things, such as taking care of sick and dying people.

There is, however, an easy solution to the current mess of legal regulations. Allow doctors to countersue whomever brings a losing lawsuit against them. Should the judge find the suit to be frivolous, the doctors should be awarded whatever sum of money the plaintiff is asking for. Then, only those who were actually wronged would sue.

Now, I’m not against medical malpractice as a whole. If a doctor leaves a scalpel in my chest after an operation, he deserves to be sued. However, medicine isn’t a perfect field, even though every doctor strives to make it so. There are risks and uncertainties in every operation. People need to realize doctors spend their lives trying to make our lives better. In a way, they are our super heroes.

Matt Baxendell is a junior in civil engineering. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].