Legal and Ethical Aspects of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Perioperative Medicine

Description

Clinical decisions in modern medical practice are increasingly influenced by ethical and legal issues, but few doctors have been formally trained in medical law and ethics, and are unsure of potential sources of accessible information, which leaves them exposed to public criticism and the threat of legal action. Perioperative medicine and critical care are, by their very nature, subjects in which issues of autonomy, dignity, consent, confidentiality, medical research, life and death decision making, and the rationing of health care resources are ever-present. This book provides a straightforward but comprehensive one-stop reference and should be essential reading for all medical and allied health care professionals who encounter ethicolegal problems during their management of patients.

• Easy to read (avoids legal and philosophical jargon)
• Comprehensive and up-to-date (includes recent important legal decisions)
• Includes clinical case scenarios, important legal case summaries, further reading and classic papers and exam questions to help get important messages across

Contents

1. Introduction
2. The English legal system
3. Medical ethics
4. Human Rights Act, 1998
5. Consent
6. Negligence
7. Confidentiality, and access to medical records
8. Abortion
9. Products liability
10. Research
11. Death, and organ procurement
12. Professional regulation, complaints and serious professional misconduct
13. Resource allocation
14. Appendix.

About the Authors

Stuart M. White, University Hospital Trust, Sussex
Timothy J. Baldwin, King's College London