The teaching of law in medical education

Virtual Mentor

Volumn 10, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 332-337

  Shah, Nirav D ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84866606742     PISSN: 19377010     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1001/virtualmentor.2008.10.5.oped1-0805     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. Horn C, Caldwell DH Jr, Osborn DC. Law for Physicians: An Overview of Medical Legal Issues. Chicago, IL: American Medical Association; 2000:1-4.
2. Leigh JP, Kravitz RL, Schembri M, Samuels SJ, Mobley S. Physician career satisfaction across specialties. Arch Intern Med. 2002;162(14):1577-1584.
3. Liang BA. Medical malpractice: do physicians have knowledge of legal standards and assess cases as juries do? U Chicago Law School Roundtable. 1996;3:59-111.
4. Noah L. Medical education and malpractice: what’s the connection? Health Matrix Clevel. 2005;15(1):149-163.
5. Studdert DM, Mello MM, Sage WM, et al. Defensive medicine among high-risk specialist physicians in a volatile malpractice environment. JAMA. 2005;293(21)2609-2617.
6. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Health Care at the Crossroads: Strategies for Improving the Medical Liability System and Preventing Patient Injury. Oakbrook, IL: Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; 2005. http://www.jointcommission.org/NR/rdonlyres/167DD821-A395-48FD-87F9-6AB12BCACB0F/0/Medical_Liability.pdf. Accessed April 16, 2008.
7. Thomas M, Rogers R, Maclean R. Physician perceptions and knowledge of the legal and ethical issues regarding HIV/AIDS confidential disclosure in managing persons with HIV/AIDS at an academic medical center (AMC). The Internet Journal of Law, Healthcare and Ethics. 2003;1(2). http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijlhe/vol1n2/hiv.xml. Accessed April 16, 2008.
8. Rock EM, Simmons PS. Physician knowledge and attitudes of Minnesota laws concerning adolescent health care. J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2003;16(2):101-108.
9. Goldie J, Schwartz L, McConnachie A, Morrison J. The impact of three years’ ethics teaching, in an integrated medical curriculum, on students’ proposed behaviour on meeting ethical dilemmas. Med Educ. 2002;36(5): 489-497.
10. For a discussion of analysis of baseline professionalism criteria, see Phelan S, Obenshain SS, Galey WR. Evaluation of noncognitive professional traits of medical students. Acad Med. 1993;68(10):799-803. For a philosophical argument against the utility of ethics, see, Posner RA. The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1999:3-90.
11. Most med students vote for health care, tolerate drug reps. The New Physician. October 2007:6. For purposes of this article, the term “legal” is taken to include medical malpractice issues, the law of typical “ethics” issues such as end-of-life care and abortion, and regulatory training in areas such as reimbursement systems, the False Claims Act and anti-kickback legislation.
12. Studdert DM, Mello MM, Sage WM, et al. Defensive medicine among high-risk specialist physicians in a volatile malpractice environment. JAMA. 2005;293(21):2609-2617.
13. US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice. OTA-H-602. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office; 2004. http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/policy/9405.pdf. Accessed April 16, 2008.
14. Joint Commission Perspectives on Patient Safety. Defensive medicine: physicians’ fear of lawsuits may affect treatment. Joint Commission Resources. 2005;5(12):5-5(1).
15. Sokol D. Letter to a new medical student. The Lancet Student. November 22, 2007. http://www.thelancetstudent.com/2007/11/22/letter-to-a-new-medicalstudent/. Accessed April 16, 2008.
16. For a discussion of the link between medical education and malpractice, see Noah L. Medical education and malpractice: what’s the connection? Health Matrix Clevel. 2005;15(1):149-163.
17. In one instance, a student reported to me that he was told that the physician-patient relationship begins “as soon as the patient walks into your office” (not legally true). Another student said he was told that you can only terminate care after you find the difficult patient another physician (also not true). Finally, a group of students reported that they were told that “one should always disclose all errors, no matter how small” (not necessarily legally required and, today, a matter of risk management policy and professional consensus). See, for example, Nguyen AVT, Nguyen DA. Learning from Medical Errors: Legal Issues. Abingdon, UK: Radcliffe Publishing LTD; 2005.
18. National Organ Transplantation Act. Organ procurement organizations, sec 273. http://www.optn.org/sharedcontentdocuments/nota_as_amended__jan_2008.pdf. Accessed April 9, 2008.
19. Rosenbaum S. The impact of United States law on medicine as profession. JAMA. 2003;289(12):1546-1556.