medicine and law
LAW AND ETHICS IN MEDICAL PRACTICE:
AN OVERVIEW
Dr. HAU Kong-lung, Consultant Forensic Pathologist (Kowloon)
Forensic Pathology Service, Department of Health
Introduction
Obviously, this was to protect the public from quackery.
Fees for the doctors were paid by the State. If unsatisfactory results followed a course of treatment that had departed from the orthodox, the doctor responsible would be liable to punishment, which could be very harsh.
Similar legal restrictions on medical practice were also found in other early civilizations such as Babylon and
India.3
It is now a firmly established belief that legal and ethical considerations are integral to medical practice in the planning for the care of the patient. With the advances in medical sciences and growing sophistication of the legal framework in modern society as well as increasing awareness of human rights and changing moral principles of the community at large, doctors and other healthcare workers alike are now frequently caught in difficult dilemmas in many aspects arising from daily practice.
Examples are plenty such as the duty to respect informed consent, truth-telling, breach of confidentiality, disclosure of medical errors, rationing of scarce health resources, biomedical research, organ donation, etc. Besides, there is also growing anxiety both within the medical profession and in the community regarding increasing trends of complaints and lawsuits against doctors. From the bitter experience of many doctors who were engaged in complaint or lawsuits in the past, many of them had resulted from failing of their doctor-patient communication skill or inadequate ability to comprehend and resolve dilemmas in clinical settings.
Throughout the history of mankind, medical legislation has continuously evolved to regulate the practice of medicine. The fundamental objective is to safeguard the standards of the medical profession and to protect the public against
AN OVERVIEW
Dr. HAU Kong-lung, Consultant Forensic Pathologist (Kowloon)
Forensic Pathology Service, Department of Health
Introduction
Obviously, this was to protect the public from quackery.
Fees for the doctors were paid by the State. If unsatisfactory results followed a course of treatment that had departed from the orthodox, the doctor responsible would be liable to punishment, which could be very harsh.
Similar legal restrictions on medical practice were also found in other early civilizations such as Babylon and
India.3
It is now a firmly established belief that legal and ethical considerations are integral to medical practice in the planning for the care of the patient. With the advances in medical sciences and growing sophistication of the legal framework in modern society as well as increasing awareness of human rights and changing moral principles of the community at large, doctors and other healthcare workers alike are now frequently caught in difficult dilemmas in many aspects arising from daily practice.
Examples are plenty such as the duty to respect informed consent, truth-telling, breach of confidentiality, disclosure of medical errors, rationing of scarce health resources, biomedical research, organ donation, etc. Besides, there is also growing anxiety both within the medical profession and in the community regarding increasing trends of complaints and lawsuits against doctors. From the bitter experience of many doctors who were engaged in complaint or lawsuits in the past, many of them had resulted from failing of their doctor-patient communication skill or inadequate ability to comprehend and resolve dilemmas in clinical settings.
Throughout the history of mankind, medical legislation has continuously evolved to regulate the practice of medicine. The fundamental objective is to safeguard the standards of the medical profession and to protect the public against