How can there be an opinion at all about nothing? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Plato** The precepts of physicians and natural philosophers about generation should also be studied by the parents themselves. GENERAL INTRODUCTION This paper concerns eugenic opportunity lost as a consequence of nondisclosure of eugenic information. The two words which m...

Medical negligence has been the subject of much public debate in recent decades. Although the steep increase in the frequency and size of claims against doctors at the end of the last century appears to have plateaued, in Australia at least, medical indemnity costs and consequences are still a matter of concern for doctors, medical defence organisations and governments in most developed countri...

OBJECTIVES To study and report the attitudes and practices of physicians in a former Soviet republic regarding issues pertaining to patients' rights, physician negligence and the acceptance of gratuities from patients. DESIGN Survey questionnaire administered to physicians in 1991 at the time of the Soviet breakup. SETTING Estonia, formerly a Soviet republic, now an independent state. SUR...

INTRODUCTION Acknowledging informed consent and warning of material risk, the present study examined the current debate regarding early discussion of Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). It sought to confirm the profile of those prone to SUDEP and to determine the basis for disclosure to patients. METHODS Patients with SUDEP attending an Australian outpatient epilepsy clinic between ...

Withholding therapy may cause a charge of manslaughter and the intended withdrawal of therapy may result in proceedings because of second-degree murder, requested homicide and omission of help, respectively. According to the criminal law, negligence of the duty to help does not require a guarantor position of the physician but the intent for punishableness. Otherwise, the physician is liable fo...

As stakeholders struggle to reconcile calls for accountability and pressures for increased patient safety, criminal prosecution of surgeons and other health-care workers for medical error seems to be on the rise. This paper examines whether legal systems can meaningfully draw a line between acceptable performance and negligence. By questioning essentialist assumptions behind 'crime' or 'neglige...

Because there is not definite scientific knowledge about posttraumatic neurosis, a psychiatrist involved in evaluating allegations of psychiatric impairment in negligence law cases can make only a circumscribed contribution. Nevertheless, the contribution can be an important one.

In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative negligence and vigilance. When both injurer and victim in an accident are negligent, it provides for liability shares that depend on the degrees of negligence of the two parties, similar to the standard comparative negligence rule. Unlike standard liability rules, however, when both parties are vigilan...

Medical negligence was estimated to cost the NHS in England 235m pounds sterling in 1996/1997, growing at rate of up to 25% per annum. Yet analysis of NHS accounts suggest that a change in accounting policy has led to growth rates and recurrent expenditure on medical negligence being over estimated. The main concern, however, is total societal cost, not the accounting cost to the NHS. The objec...

The conventional justification for a statute of limitations on tort suits (or any other legal claim) is that evidence deteriorates over time, thereby increasing the likelihood of legal error. The optimal statute balances this cost of a longer statute length against the dilution in deterrence that results from a shorter length. In this paper I develop a formal model to show that a finite statute...