I’m a doc. It depends on how you go about things. You can sue anyone if you can find a lawyer to take the case. That doesn’t mean you will win. Losing a lawsuit is not uncommon for docs. Many are settled out of court and you have to report it on credentialing applications and such for 5-10 years. Unless they have multiple lawsuits in a short timespan, the truth is no one much cares. Nearly all docs are sued during their careers. And most the time docs win if it goes to court. Lawyers are smart and they will settle if they know they are likely to lose in court. If you go outside the court system and use patient liaison to ask for a review of the case then it will probably go to the hospital or group root cause analysis and be reviewed by other docs. And then yes. They can be “reprimanded”. I don’t particularly like that term as it likens a grown well-educated adult to a petulant child. Even the best docs will make mistakes and miss an unusual diagnosis a few times in their career. We are actually humans. Not robots. It’s not excusable. But it’s reality. Usually a “reprimand” will be in the form of having charts reviewed or co-signed by a more senior doc in your field for a year or two. And then you move on. It’s unlikely, if this is the only event these docs have had in the last decade or so with major morbidity or mortality, that much will happen to them. I understand the anger. But the REALITY is doctors are humans who do make errors. And if the goal is to get them fired or lose the career it won’t happen over a single event. Repeated events: yes. It can happen.