When docs sue their own hospitals

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a medical staff has standing to sue its hospital board and that the medical staff bylaws constitute "an enforceable contract between members of a medical staff and a hospital." How that ruling will be played out in hospitals nationwide will be an interesting chapter in the hospital medical staff story. The 3-year case pitted Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center, a 25-bed hospital in southwestern Minnesota, against its own medical staff. A district court and court of appeals had ruled in favor of the hospital, but with assistance from various national and state medical associations, the plaintiff doctors went to the Supreme Court, which overturned the earlier decisions by a vote of 5-2.