Would responsible medical lawyers lose their patients?

This essay presents an analytic approach to understanding patients' responsibilities. Prompted by arguments in Margaret Brazier's article 'Do No Harm--Do Patients Have Responsibilities Too?', the paper demonstrates how medical lawyers can attempt to answer the questions Brazier raises, particularly regarding the translation of ethical responsibilities into legal ones. It suggests that the expansive nature of medical law as a discipline renders increasingly unhelpful the paradigm 'autonomous patients' found in a narrowly understood medical ethics. The great variety of contexts in which analysis takes place--some more, and some less 'medical'--implies a need in each case to presume that there might be radical variation in the responsibilities (legal and ethical) of different patients. It is therefore argued that instead of a one-size-fits-all paradigm of 'patients', always possessive of the same rights and freedoms, medical lawyers must be prepared to conduct analysis around more particular, nuanced concepts of the patient, and ultimately in a frame of legal and political rather than moral theory.     

Is medical care different? Old questions, new answers

This paper examines whether changes in medical markets may be making them more like other markets. The emergence of HMOs and other managed care systems appears to have increased the consumer's potential ability to make better comparative judgments about the price and quality of medical care, and also seems to have made medical care more like other goods. However, the evidence that medical care is a "reputation good" suggests that it is, in this respect, different from other goods. Finally, the social concerns about medical care use necessarily make medical care different.     

Anna Mikhaĭlovna Smyslova--the first Russian woman forensic medical expert

This article describes in brief the life and the work of the first Russian female forensic medical expert, Anna Mikhailovna Smyslova, based on the analysis of the materials available from the Central State Historical Archive, Sankt-Peterburg, and a number of publications in the-prerevolutionary editions.     

The struggle over retiree medical benefits: who's on top?

Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of litigation addressing an employer's right to unilaterally amend or terminate medical benefits provided to retirees. The sheer volume of these cases and the variety of facts and legal theories have combined to obscure the patterns and trends that actually are emerging from this litigation. This article will describe the context of the struggle over retiree benefits and discuss those leading decisions in which the federal courts of appeals have established their rules for deciding retiree benefits cases.     

Is there an acceptable answer to rising medical malpractice premiums?

This article explores the key issues involved in the attempts at reform of the present medical malpractice system. Investigating the effects that federal tort reform legislation would have on physicians, patients, lawyers, and the medical malpractice insurers, Dr. Gunnar succinctly outlines the issues surrounding the present "crisis in healthcare" and explores the separate interests involved. The article examines the economic forces influencing the medical malpractice insurance industry, reviews previous tort reform, and predicts the future of federal tort reform legislation. Dr. Gunnar concludes by proposing alternatives for malpractice reform.