Michael Bolger is an AVMA Director and local contact. As a result of medical negligence, he is paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He won substantial damages in the High Court after suing the Health Authority and senior consultant concerned. Michael has written several articles and has been interviewed on radio and television about his experience as a victim of medical negligence and as a plaintiff and has views on the need for change. In this article, Michael describes the seminar at which he was the lead speaker at the AVMA Medical Negligence Conference, held on 4–5th July 1997, where he discussed the impact of medical negligence on victims and doctors with a group of senior hospital doctors and consultants, the first time that a face-to-face discussion of this kind has taken place.
