Journal of Legal Medicine最新文献

Asthma is the most common chronic lung disease in children and disproportionately impacts children from marginalized populations. Pediatric asthma health disparities are persistent, and multi-level solutions are needed to achieve health equity. Health policy, when equitably and successfully implemented, has the capacity to address these disparities and improve health outcomes. A stock inhaler policy is a simple policy solution to the lack of rescue inhaler access in the school setting, with a necessity for deescalating asthma symptoms, which are common. Despite this being a commonsense policy, implementation of stock inhaler programming after passage of Public Act 100-0726 in 2018 has been slow. One reason for this has been the reluctance of prescribers and school administrations due to liability concerns. Two recent studies corroborated that this was a heightened concern. To assess the legitimacy of potential liability concerns raised, a legal analysis of Public Act 100-0726 was conducted. This article details our collaborative legal analysis conducted with key partners in public health, medical, and legal fields. The results of the legal analysis suggest that risk of liability is low and concerns are overestimated. Therefore, efforts to mitigate perceptions of liability and to link schools to universal prescribers may facilitate stock inhaler policies in Illinois and beyond.

Medical malpractice insurance coverage and considerations in the United States remain focal points of substantial discourse, particularly for anesthesiology. This study provides a structured and comprehensive overview of malpractice insurance plan coverage and costs in anesthesiology practice while focusing on two pivotal aspects of the financial elements of medical malpractice: shifting trends in medical malpractice insurance costs and transitions in the medical malpractice liability insurance market. By incorporating new empirical data from a survey by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, which targeted medical malpractice insurers, this review exposes new dimensions within the arena of medical malpractice insurance. The study underscores the fluid nature of medical malpractice insurance and its costs, accentuating challenges anesthesiologists encounter when procuring medical malpractice coverage and articulating the ongoing influence of fluctuations in malpractice-insurance costs and the associated legal considerations for anesthesiologists.

Sexual boundary violations by physicians are receiving increased public awareness as a result of disturbing, high-profile cases of abuse and assault. In the area of sexual relations with current patients, rules prohibiting such conduct are both clear and justified. In contrast, rules governing sexual relations between physicians and former patients and between physicians and the relatives of patients vary considerably among jurisdictions and among specialties in an illogical and often unjust patchwork. This article calls for a reassessment of such rules with an emphasis on consistency among jurisdictions, uniformity among specialties, and an operationalizable system for permitting some such relationships in a manner that balances the goals of protecting vulnerable parties and upholding their autonomy.

Physicians are expected to ensure that patients are meaningfully informed and have voluntarily consented prior to engaging in any medical interventions upon a competent patient with decisional capacity. One aspect of informed consent is the disclosure of information that a reasonable patient might require to make a knowledgeable decision. A potential exception to this principle arises regarding the disclosure of a surgeon's degree of skill compared to that of their competitors. Whether or not a surgeon has an ethical obligation to disclose relative success rates becomes even more challenging with regard to facial feminization surgery (FFS) for transgender women, where the success of outcomes is highly subjective. This essay explores legal and ethical considerations regarding the disclosure of comparative surgical outcomes for patients pursuing FFS.

Practitioners of medicine have a moral as well as legal obligation to serve their patients to the best of their ability, and in recent years the medical profession throughout the world has affirmed this principle. But where there is negligence of this sacred duty, a claim arises. Most civil claims are governed by the law of limitation, which restricts the time in which a plaintiff can bring a suit. The period of limitation varies depending on the type of claim. One of the exceptions to this law of limitation is the discovery rule. The rule can extend the period of limitation when the harm is not obvious or is latent. This article focuses on the different parameters of the discovery rule and the emerging judicial approach adopted in India.