Where I am coming from has already been mentioned by others above, but there is a difference between a doctor with a record of malpractice continuing to be employed by a hospital, and a physician using his or her position for criminal misconduct without any evidence the hospital was aware of it. As I stated, if there is any evidence that the hospital knew of this physician performing improper actions, and did nothing about it, they absolutely share liability. This isn't a surgeon with a bad habit of leaving clamps inside a patient when they close, or an ER physician who keeps having patients bounce back because of lazy work-ups; this is a physician who committed numerous crimes, and when the hospital found out, they took every appropriate action.
Your comment about only a doctor should be named in a malpractice suit is accurate up to a point; I believe only someone who actually did something wrong should be liable for a bad outcome, whether we are talking about within medicine or elsewhere. If a doctor, and no one else, committed malpractice, they should be the only ones subject to a suit. If the hospital/employer had evidence of misconduct/malpractice on the part of the doctor and did nothing about it, they absolutely should be subject to a suit. Most lawsuits, of course, involve a bad outcome due to random chance, poor compliance by a patient, or most commonly, an easily foreseen possible negative outcome that some family, patient, or lawyer decides the "evil doctor" or "evil hospital" should have to pay for. After all, they are all rich anyway, right? Doesn't matter if anyone actually did anything wrong, as long as lawyers get their cut....
Needless to say, I believe malpractice reform is long overdue, both in medicine and outside of medicine...
