THERE are certain bars and restaurants around the law courts of Charleston, South Carolina, that local surgeon Chris Hawk would be ill-advised to enter. Among lawyers, his name is mud.

That's because at the South Carolina Medical Association's annual get-together this year Hawk proposed a motion that doctors should be able to refuse to treat lawyers - and their spouses. The motion was defeated, but not before it provoked outrage among the legal sector. "There was quite a bit of hate mail," he says. "I was called a disgrace to my profession."

Hawk was motivated by the soaring number of lawsuits claiming damages for negligence by doctors - and the telephone-number payouts that courts are awarding. Medical litigation has become a huge drain on healthcare budgets, and while the problem is most extreme in the US, other countries such as the UK and Australia are following this lead.

But the ...