In A Recent Case Decided By the El Paso Court of Appeals, the court upheld a physician's assertion of the peer review privilege in a medical malpractice action against him; however, the court stated "that it seems unfair and illogical that this statute could prevent plaintiffs from using information available to, and publishable by, any newspaper reporter." The case involved a physician who was summarily suspended from the hospital and who sued the hospital for suspending his staff privileges. In responding to the lawsuit, the hospital produced and filed peer review and committee records in the federal court action, which included civil rights allegations. Plaintiffs obtained copies of the records by requesting access to the file and then sought to use the peer review records in the malpractice case. The case is noteworthy because it held that the physician is entitled to invoke the peer review privilege and because the court did not feel that upholding the privilege was fair under these circumstances. Further, the case highlights the difficulty of a hospital in taking a peer review action, then defending the peer reviewaction when the doctor sues, thereby subjecting its records to review and allegations of waiver of the privilege.
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