Resumo Estudos em conselhos regionais de medicina apontam a ortopedia como especialidade com grande índice de sindicâncias e processos ético-profissionais. Diante disso, este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar a frequência de litígios por erro médico na esfera cível envolvendo ortopedistas no polo passivo do Tribunal de Justiça do Estado do Rio de Janeiro entre 1975 e 2015. Para tanto, foram selecionados processos de responsabilidade civil em que o ortopedista figurava no polo passivo, dos quais poucos (seis) preenchiam os requisitos, com 86% de improcedência em primeira instância. Concluiu-se que o papel do perito é destacado, visto que houve 100% de concordância entre o laudo pericial e a decisão jurídica, e, como o número de processos foi pequeno, são necessários novos estudos nas demais regiões do país para resultados mais decisivos.

ObjectiveTo collect criminal justice data involving medical professionals in the São Paulo State Court of Appeals and to establish the number of criminal proceedings involving said professionals, the content of the accusations and the conviction rate per specialty.MethodsA keyword search was carried out in the State Appellate Court case law website with the term “medical error” for decisions rendered from January 1st, 2011 to December 31st, 2016, and the subject “criminal law” was selected.ResultsA total of 34 cases met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. Lower court's convictions accounted to 73.5% of the cases, with a slight tendency towards increase over the years. The number of cases per medical specialty was ten cases of clinical emergency, eight of obstetrics, seven of surgery, three of pediatrics (one case was related to pediatrics and obstetrics), two of orthopedic surgery, two of clinical director, one anesthesiologist and one nonemergency internal medicine physician. Among these cases, 6 were related to bodily injury, 26 to homicide and 2 criminal contempt.ConclusionThe physicians most exposed to medical error were from surgical specialties, probably due to the higher rate of complications associated with the procedures, and emergency physicians, professionals who need greater qualification.