Michael Saks
Arizona State University, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Faculty Member
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For decades, “defensive medicine” has been the leading argument driving reforms of medical malpractice laws throughout the United States. Defensive medicine is the presumed practice of administering excessive tests and treatments as a... more
For decades, “defensive medicine” has been the leading argument driving reforms of medical malpractice laws throughout the United States. Defensive medicine is the presumed practice of administering excessive tests and treatments as a stratagem for reducing healthcare providers’ risk of malpractice liability, despite the absence of any expected benefit for the patient. The practice is widely believed to exist throughout American healthcare as a response to fears of malpractice litigation, and thought to be enormously wasteful of healthcare dollars. In consequence, it has become a justification for law reforms insulating the healthcare industry from tort liability. These claims are promoted by the healthcare industry even though they imply that most providers routinely engage in healthcare fraud and violate their own ethical rules. We review the evidence behind these beliefs — including direct physician surveys, clinical scenario studies, and multivariate analyses of actual case data...
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This study explores behavioral health professionals’ perceptions of granular data. Semi-structured in-person interviews of 20 health professionals were conducted at two different sites. Qualitative and quantitative analysis was performed.... more
This study explores behavioral health professionals’ perceptions of granular data. Semi-structured in-person interviews of 20 health professionals were conducted at two different sites. Qualitative and quantitative analysis was performed. While most health professionals agreed that patients should control who accesses their personal medical record (70%), there are certain types of health information that should never be restricted (65%). Emergent themes, including perceived reasons that patients might share or withhold certain types of health information (65%), care coordination (12%), patient comprehension (11%), stigma (5%), trust (3%), sociocultural understanding (3%), and dissatisfaction with consent processes (1%), are explored. The impact of care role (prescriber or non-prescriber) on data-sharing perception is explored as well. This study informs the discussion on developing technology that helps balance provider and patient data-sharing and access needs.
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Integrated mental and physical care environments require data sharing, but little is known about health professionals’ perceptions of patient-controlled health data sharing. We describe mental health professionals’ views on... more
Integrated mental and physical care environments require data sharing, but little is known about health professionals’ perceptions of patient-controlled health data sharing. We describe mental health professionals’ views on patient-controlled data sharing using semi-structured interviews and a mixed-method analysis with thematic coding. Health information rights, specifically those of patients and health care professionals, emerged as a key theme. Behavioral health professionals identified patient motivations for non-sharing sensitive mental health records relating to substance use, emergency treatment, and serious mental illness (94%). We explore conflicts between professional need for timely access to health information and patient desire to withhold some data categories. Health professionals’ views on data sharing are integral to the redesign of health data sharing and informed consent. As well, they seek clarity about the impact of patient-controlled sharing on health profession...
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A main objective of this study is to assess the opinions of 50 behavioral health patients on selective control over their behavioral and physical health information. We explored patients' preferences regarding current consent models,... more
A main objective of this study is to assess the opinions of 50 behavioral health patients on selective control over their behavioral and physical health information. We explored patients' preferences regarding current consent models, what health information should be shared for care and research and whether these preferences vary based on the sensitivity of health information and/or the type of provider involved. The other objective of this study was to solicit opinions of 8 behavioral health providers on patient-driven granular control of health information and potential impact on care.Electronic surveys were implemented at an outpatient Behavioral Health facility that provides care for behavioral health patients with non-serious mental illnesses. The Patient Survey included questions regarding patients' demographics and about their concerns and preferences for data sharing for care and research. The Provider Survey included questions about their view on the current consent...
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Turning Practice into Progress: Better Lawyering Through Experimentation Michael J. Saks* This Article argues that trial practitioners and programs that ... I suggest a way that National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) courses, with... more
Turning Practice into Progress: Better Lawyering Through Experimentation Michael J. Saks* This Article argues that trial practitioners and programs that ... I suggest a way that National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) courses, with the investment of modest additional effort, could ...
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Thanks to empirical research conducted over the past several decades, we can be reasonably sure that quite a lot of discussion about medical malpractice and corresponding law proceeds on erroneous assumptions, speculations, and anecdotal... more
Thanks to empirical research conducted over the past several decades, we can be reasonably sure that quite a lot of discussion about medical malpractice and corresponding law proceeds on erroneous assumptions, speculations, and anecdotal impressions about the operation and effects of the existing system. The tort system's most serious problem in the medical malpractice area is not that plaintiffs bring claims too readily and too often, or that the system affords relief too easily, or that the relief granted is overly generous. Rather ...
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Symptoms, symptom dominance patterns, and precipitating circumstances were investigated in groups of male and female Argentine psychiatric patients divided on the basis of father’s socioeconomic level, own socioeconomic level, and social... more
Symptoms, symptom dominance patterns, and precipitating circumstances were investigated in groups of male and female Argentine psychiatric patients divided on the basis of father’s socioeconomic level, own socioeconomic level, and social mobility. Upon comparison of the results obtained with those of a closely related North American study, the conclusion was reached that virtually no findings were identical in the two investigations. There were, however, similarities in theme and character of the relationships between symptom and social class variables in the two countries. Overt, impulsive, and bizarre symptomatology predominated among lower class patients, intermediate levels of socioeconomic status tended toward self-blame and guilt, and the highest groups included in this study expressed anxiety, tension, and alienation. The interculturally consistent and the specifically Argentine components of these findings were discussed in relation to the available reports on the ways of li...
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The advent of electronic medical records and health information exchanges has facilitated the possibility of patients exercising increasingly granular control over sensitive health information. In principle, patients should be able to... more
The advent of electronic medical records and health information exchanges has facilitated the possibility of patients exercising increasingly granular control over sensitive health information. In principle, patients should be able to control which of their health information is made accessible to which of their healthcare providers. To meet this goal, the architects of any system of granular control of patients' health information face a variety of challenges. In addition to technical, ethical, and prudential considerations, the architects of any effective system must also ensure compliance with applicable legal requirements. The extent of a patient's permissible control depends upon whether governing law prohibits providers from disclosing health information to other providers without a patient's authorization, permits providers to disclose to other providers at the provider's discretion, or requires such disclosure. To inform efforts to design a viable system, thi...
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Research Interests: Psychology and Law
This study concerned the regulation of professional behavior. Several sources of regulation were examined to see if and how they succeeded in directing psychiatrists' administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Archival data... more
This study concerned the regulation of professional behavior. Several sources of regulation were examined to see if and how they succeeded in directing psychiatrists' administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Archival data from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health were used to compare professional behavior with scientific evidence and professional consensus in four areas of ECT administration. Results show that approximately 90% of ECT patients received treatment inappropriately, suggesting that the regulation of ECT administration is ineffective. A survey of psychiatrists suggests that some forms of regulation have not been implemented while those regulations which do exist convey little information to inform the behavior of psychiatrists and are, consequently, ineffective. Psychiatrists' behavior was, however, related to their attention to the medical literature.
Research Interests: Law, Jurisprudence, Psychiatry, Medicine, Electroconvulsive therapy, and 15 moreMethods, Psychiatry and the law, Humans, Physicians, Attitude, Data Collection, Massachusetts, Mental Disorders, Patient Care, Societies, State government, Formal Social Control, Government Regulation, Statistics as Topic, and Reference standards
Downloading the book in this website lists can give you more advantages. It will show you the best book collections and completed collections. So many books can be found in this website. So, this is not only this advances in applied... more
Downloading the book in this website lists can give you more advantages. It will show you the best book collections and completed collections. So many books can be found in this website. So, this is not only this advances in applied social psychology. However, this book is referred to read because it is an inspiring book to give you more chance to get experiences and also thoughts. This is simple, read the soft file of the book and you get it.
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Several forensic sciences, especially of the pattern-matching kind, are increasingly seen to lack the scientific foundation needed to justify continuing admission as trial evidence. Indeed, several have been abolished in the recent past.... more
Several forensic sciences, especially of the pattern-matching kind, are increasingly seen to lack the scientific foundation needed to justify continuing admission as trial evidence. Indeed, several have been abolished in the recent past. A likely next candidate for elimination is bitemark identification. A number of DNA exonerations have occurred in recent years for individuals convicted based on erroneous bitemark identifications. Intense scientific and legal scrutiny has resulted. An important National Academies review found little scientific support for the field. The Texas Forensic Science Commission recently recommended a moratorium on the admission of bitemark expert testimony. The California Supreme Court has a case before it that could start a national dismantling of forensic odontology. This article describes the (legal) basis for the rise of bitemark identification and the (scientific) basis for its impending fall. The article explains the general logic of forensic identif...
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Commentary Trial Outcomes and Demographics: Easy Assumptions Versus Hard Evidence^ Eisenberg and Wells1 have set out to test the notion that minorities, the poor, and residents of highly urbanized areas favor injured plaintiffs and give... more
Commentary Trial Outcomes and Demographics: Easy Assumptions Versus Hard Evidence^ Eisenberg and Wells1 have set out to test the notion that minorities, the poor, and residents of highly urbanized areas favor injured plaintiffs and give them exorbitant awards. Are these demographic beliefs generally true, or merely legal folklore?2 To perform this test, they assembled two huge databases. The first is comprised of tens of thousands of cases spanning the period from 1979 to 2000, and occurring in 296 federal trial units3 around the country. The second database contains thousands of state cases occurring in forty-five of the seventy-five largest urban counties for the years 1992 and 1996. They aggregated the cases within trial units, linked the trial units to demographic data drawn from the U.S. Census (black population percentage, Hispanic population percentage, poverty rate, and urbanization), and analyzed the data for possible relationships. Moreover, their focus is limited to employment discrimination cases, products liability cases, and personal injury tort cases, making their test more sensitive than if they had chosen a representative mass of cases. The study is a large undertaking, and the authors are to be admired for the intelligence and energy required to perform such a task. The findings come down to this. If we limited ourselves to the results that reached conventional levels of statistical significance,4 remarkably few IMAGE FORMULA8 relationships exist. Even fewer results support the folklore of the Bronx effect. With respect to damage awards in state courts, there are simply no relationships between the demographic factors studied and the tendency to give larger or smaller awards to successful plaintiffs. In federal courts, urban areas with proportionately larger black populations gave smaller5 tort and products liability awards. Urban areas with proportionately larger Hispanic populations gave smaller products liability awards, while Hispanic populations in nonurban areas gave larger products liability awards and larger awards for torts. (So far, the results are exactly opposite of the folklore.) In urban areas with higher poverty rates, products liability awards were higher. In other words, with respect to award sizes, the folklore is almost completely unsupported, and even has most of it backwards.6 With respect to plaintiff win rates in state courts, only one relationship was found: in areas where the poverty rate was higher, tort plaintiffs won a higher proportion of cases. In urban federal courts, the opposite was true for IMAGE FORMULA10 discrimination cases.7 Jurors in the most urbanized courts were less likely to find for plaintiffs in discrimination cases, but more likely to find for them in products liability cases. In federal courts in areas of relatively greater urbanization and high black percentage, plaintiffs in all three types of cases were more successful. This last finding is the only one that is both persistent and consistent with the folklore,8 though it is found only in federal courts. Moreover, we might note that this pattern for liability verdicts is offset by the fact that areas with more blacks were no more likely to award larger damages than areas with fewer blacks. This finding suggests that, while black communities are more sympathetic to discrimination claims, they are no more generous with the wrongdoer's money. The study concludes that demographics have little or nothing to do with the outcome of civil trials. I believe Eisenberg and Wells's conclusions, but not because of their study's findings. The Eisenberg and Wells findings flow from a study that, despite many impressive qualities, is not especially well-designed to test the hypotheses of interest. I believe most of the findings because the results generally comport with the findings of other research providing clearer tests of the same issues. …
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The position of an expert on the witness stand, who does not testify either to what he has observed or knows as fact but expresses merely his opinion as to a situation or on facts which have been established by other witnesses, is... more
The position of an expert on the witness stand, who does not testify either to what he has observed or knows as fact but expresses merely his opinion as to a situation or on facts which have been established by other witnesses, is anomalous in Anglo-Saxon law. It was to be expected that former generations of judges and lawyers, trained in older precedents and practices who recognized the appearance in the courts of an expert witness as an innovation would look with suspicion and doubt on such testimony. While the principles on which such evidence is introduced have come to be well recognized and while the [legal] profession no longer has any reservations in approving theoretically of the use of expert testimony, yet, on the other hand, there is a constant complaining and mistrust on the part of judges, juries and lawyers of the expert witness. (Friedman, 1910, p. 247)
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How is a litigator to know "what works"? The implicit answer given by most books on trial advocacy is: from accumulated intuitions about which tactics are thought to be persuasive. In their recent book, entitled Sponsorship... more
How is a litigator to know "what works"? The implicit answer given by most books on trial advocacy is: from accumulated intuitions about which tactics are thought to be persuasive. In their recent book, entitled Sponsorship Strategy, Robert Klonoff and Paul Colby offer a different ...
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Page 1. Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1986 The Law Does Not Live by Testimony Alone Eyewitness Michael J. Saks* This issue completes the first volume of Law and Human Behavior under my editorship. After ...
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Page 1. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1978, Vol. 36, No. 4, 436-450 An Integration Theory Analysis of Jurors' Presumptions of Guilt or Innocence Thomas M. Ostrom Carol Werner Ohio State University University of... more
Page 1. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1978, Vol. 36, No. 4, 436-450 An Integration Theory Analysis of Jurors' Presumptions of Guilt or Innocence Thomas M. Ostrom Carol Werner Ohio State University University of Utah Michael J. Saks Boston College ...
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1. J Forensic Sci. 2005 Sep;50(5):1251-2; author reply 1253-4. Commentary on: Saks MJ, Vanderhaar H. on the "General acceptance" of handwriting identification principles. J Forensic Sci 2005;50(1):119-124. Kelly JS, Carney BB.... more
1. J Forensic Sci. 2005 Sep;50(5):1251-2; author reply 1253-4. Commentary on: Saks MJ, Vanderhaar H. on the "General acceptance" of handwriting identification principles. J Forensic Sci 2005;50(1):119-124. Kelly JS, Carney BB. Comment on: J Forensic Sci. ...
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Advertisement. Close Window. Close Window. Thank you for choosing to subscribe to the eTOC for Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. Enter your Email address: Wolters Kluwer Health may email you for journal ...
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This article reviews the fundamental assumptions of forensic identification... more
This article reviews the fundamental assumptions of forensic identification ("individualization") science and notes the lack of empirical evidence or theory supporting its typical strong claims. The article then discusses three general research strategies for placing these fields on firmer scientific ground. It concludes by suggesting what forensic identification science experts can do while awaiting that scientific foundation.
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ABSTRACTBy lopsided majorities, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, persistently commanded the lower courts to condition the admission of proffered expert testimony on the demonstrated validity of the proponents’ claims of... more
ABSTRACTBy lopsided majorities, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, persistently commanded the lower courts to condition the admission of proffered expert testimony on the demonstrated validity of the proponents’ claims of expertise. In at least one broad area–the so-called forensic sciences–the courts below have largely evaded the Supreme Court's holdings. This paper aims to try to explain this massive defiance by the lower courts in terms of social epistemology.