The Healer: The Power of an Apology
“I was part of a surgical team which made a mistake,” the physican recounted, “and we lost a child. Everyone froze and said nothing, fearful of the legal liability. I was in shock and didn’t know what to say. I just went up to the child’s mother and told her how very sorry I was.”
Three years later, the malpractice lawsuit finally came to court. Our lawyer just couldn’t understand why I wasn’t named when everyone else on the surgical team was. He asked me and I didn’t know. Finally he couldn’t contain his curiosity anymore so, during a deposition, he asked the child’s mother why she wasn’t suing me too. She replied, ‘Because he was the only one who cared.'”