Fifteen years ago, Lars Aanning, MD, lied during his testimony to protect a fellow surgeon from a medical malpractice lawsuit in which the patient was permanently disabled due to a postoperative complication. Now Dr. Aanning is coming forth with a belated confession.
At the time, he said he had no problem defending his colleague and testifying that the surgeon had done everything right.
"But from that very moment I knew I had lied — lied under oath — and violated all my pledges of professionalism that came with the Doctor of Medicine degree and membership in the AMA [American Medical Association]," Dr. Aanning wrote in his admission, which appeared in The Yankton County Observer and was posted in ProPublica's Patient Safety Facebook Group. In it, he writes that even though physicians vow to dedicate themselves to the patient, colleagues "have essentially sworn an oath of loyalty to each other."
To breach that trust by outing a colleague for negligence would mean a physician would have to retire or relocate, according to Dr. Aanning. In a separate interview with ProPublica, Dr. Aanning said at the time he didn't think of it as lying, he thought of it as supporting his colleague. He told ProPublica he decided to tell the truth now because he is retired and he now helps plaintiffs' lawyers with their malpractice cases.
Dr. Aanning wrote, "My bottom line: Employment contracts usually hold physicians loyal to the organization, and should be recognized by the legal system as barriers to honest testimony by a physician's colleagues, even if sworn on the Bible."
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