Study of medical malpractice complaints in the field of dermatology and cosmetic, in the coroner's Office of Forensic Medicine, province of Tehran, during 2002 to 2010

Today, despite numerous advances in medical sciences, the number of complaints against physicians shows an increasing trend. Studying the causes of these complaints and identify contributing factors may reduce medical litigation. The aim of this study was to assess the reasons of complaints in the field of dermatology and cosmetic. In this retrospective cross-sectional study, we investigated the medical malpractice records related to dermatology and cosmetics, registered in the office of Forensic Medicine, province of Tehran from 2002 to 2010. In 63.4%, 35.3%, and 1.2% of cases, verdicts of malpractice, acquittal and closing the file without a verdict, were issued; respectively. The most common types of negligence were related to improvidence (63.4%), lack of proficiency (27%), and disregarding of governmental provisions (5.7%). Most frequent causes of complaints were related to scar and darkening of skin after laser therapy (24.4%), dissatisfaction of hair transplantation (19.5%), and complications after injection of filler gels, botollonium toxin, etc (15.8%). Most plaintiffs were women, in their 20s, with a highschool diploma and were housewives. The most frequent age range of the physicians was 30-39 years old and most of them were male. Considering medical ethics and professionalism, good communication between physician, medical personnel and patient including his entourage, full examination, adequate explanations about therapeutic procedures and possible complications, lack of exaggerating the results of therapy, continuous study and updating medical knowledge, improvement of medical skills and experiments, refrain from dealing with procedures that did not pass its training courses, properly selected patient, take informed concept and innocence may reduce the number of complaints.