BACKGROUND The relationship between male sex and poor performance in doctors remains unclear, with high profile studies showing conflicting results. Nevertheless, it is an important first step towards understanding the causes of poor performance in doctors. This article aims to establish the robustness of the association between male sex and poor performance in doctors, internationally and over...

Despite a growing awareness that mistaken eyewitness identifications contribute significantly to wrongful convictions, most courts continue to apply federal Due Process criteria for admissibility of eyewitness identification that has proved useless in protecting against the use of highly unreliable evidence. In response, this article reviews the path-breaking decisions of several state supreme ...

This paper develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a more general framework for implementing a contextualist semantics and pragmatics, called Discourse Contextualism (Silk 2014b). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of cl...

will is the basis and foundation of contracts and possessions; almost without which no contract and possession can take the religious and legal affects. heart is the place of will, and because will has a high dignity, it cannot attributed to any matter unless it is declared and manifested. silence is one of the means of interpretation of the will. it, like utterance, scribe, deed and gesture, h...

OBJECTIVES Mental health laws set criteria that limit the use of involuntary admission to specific circumstances, and clinicians are expected to justify the lawfulness of such detention by referral to these criteria. The South Australian Mental Health Act 1993 required grounds to be documented on the detention form, specifically with respect to the presence of a mental illness, risk to self or ...

Can neurological evidence help courts assess criminal responsibility? To answer this question, we must first specify legal criteria for criminal responsibility and then ask how neurological findings can be used to determine whether particular defendants meet those criteria. Cognitive neuroscience may speak to at least two familiar conditions of criminal responsibility: intention and sanity. Fun...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate criteria for the diagnosis of asthma in an epidemiological survey. METHODS Adolescents (13-14 years of age) and legal guardians of schoolchildren (6-7 years of age) in the city of Santo André, Brazil, completed the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) standard written questionnaire. Affirmative responses regarding wheezing within the last 12 m...

BACKGROUND Homicides by people with mental illness have been studied using either clinical or legal categorization of the homicide as abnormal. No previous study has employed both definitions in the same population. METHOD A retrospective study of all homicides in New Zealand between 1988 and 2000 considered mentally abnormal homicide using a legal definition (when the courts deemed a contrib...

BACKGROUND The use of involuntary admission in psychiatry may be necessary to enable treatment and prevent harm, yet remains controversial. Mental health laws in high-income countries typically permit coercive treatment of persons with mental disorders to restore health or prevent future harm. Criteria intended to regulate practice leave scope for discretion. The values and beliefs of staff may...