Advances in medicine brought about by modern technology have created a sense among many people that doctors can detect and successfully treat virtually all diseases. But the reality is that only God is perfect. And doctors are not gods. While technology can detect problems, they cannot prevent them from occurring.

Yet when treatments do not succeed, as they occasionally do not, many people's first response is to ask what did the doctor do wrong? Certainly, many personal injury lawyers today exploit this unrealistic expectation and the misconceptions that result. You had a bad outcome? Well, the personal injury lawyers say, "Let's sue the doctor and get compensation" (and by the way, a large chunk of any award goes to your lawyer, of course).

There is not an obstetrician who does not want each and every baby he or she delivers to be perfectly healthy. But every obstetrician knows that it is a statistical probability that during the course of his or her professional lifetime, there will be one or more babies who, unfortunately, will not be born healthy and may even be born severely damaged. And it will have nothing to do with the performance of the doctor.

Obstetricians today feel like they are in a game of medical Russian roulette. Every day we lie in fear of delivering an unhealthy baby, which then can lead to a lawsuit that results in jury awards in the tens of millions of dollars, far in excess of what our exorbitantly expensive malpractice insurance policies will cover.

There isn't an obstetrician today who does not fear a lawsuit that can result in his personal financial ruin and with it the financial security of his family. That is why we are starting to see more and more OB/GYNs dropping their obstetrical practices and limiting themselves to gynecology. Eventually women will find it more difficult to find obstetricians.

Something must be done about our out-of-control medical liability system before it is too late and women start finding themselves traveling long distances to gain access to a shrinking supply of obstetricians. Call local New York State Assembly Members Earlene Hooper at 489-6610 and Tom DiNapoli at 482-6966 and tell them that it is urgent that this broken legal system be fixed now.

Dr. Steven R. Sherwin