Criteria for Judgment of Negligence in Medical Accidents and Countermeasures: Reference to the cases of Japan and the United States

Medical accidents are occurring frequently. This is a problem of negligence and there are many difficulties in proving it. Medical accidents are related to negligence offenders, and in some cases, the sentence is lighter than intentional offenders or there are no regulations at all. For such medical accidents, the victim or the victim's family may suffer damage that they do not need to suffer, which may not only be mentally difficult, but also difficult to prove. On the other hand, from the standpoint of medical staff, if criminal punishment for medical accidents is strengthened, it is not easy to strengthen criminal punishment as it can be passively treated. In recent years, a series of serious medical negligence cases have led to a lot of discussions on the prevention of this and criminal responsibility for medical personnel, and cases of medical negligence are often leading to criminal cases. In recent years, it is pointed out that even if criminal responsibility is removed for medical negligence, the prevention effect of medical accidents does not improve the quality of medical care, and for example, it does not function as a normal medical system by reducing emergency medical care and passing on patients. Meanwhile, medical malpractice cases in the United States are often not subject to criminal punishment. However, even in the United States, criminal prosecutions for medical negligence have not been carried out at all, and in particular, medical negligence cases seem to be on the rise recently. Although the number of medical malpractice cases has been on the rise since the 1980s, it seems to be quite small compared to Japan. However, in the United States, in addition to the punishment for medical negligence, there are various systems including sanctions, which cannot be simply compared with Japan. As mentioned above there are many cases of medical negligence, but an in-depth discussion is needed on the issue of criminal responsibility for this. Since the U.S. and Japan also have different systems of negligence, it is thought that it will be meaningful to review the criteria for judging medical negligence and countermeasures. Therefore, in this paper we reviewed what the criteria for judging negligence in the United States and Japan are and how they respond to medical negligence.