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4 Medicolegal News 1 (1976)

handle is hein.journals/medeth4 and id is 1 raw text is: medicolegal news A publication of the American Society of Law & Medicine, Inc. continuing medicolegal education January, 1976 Lecture Series on Patient Rights To Begin in Early February An ASLM sponsored lecture series on The Rights of Hospital Patients and the Con- sumers' Role in Health Care Policy will begin on February 4, 1976 at 4:00 p.m. in the Ames Courtroom at Harvard Law School. The lecture series will run for six weeks, from February 4 to March 10, and will meet every Wednesday at Harvard Law School from 4:00-6:00 p.m. Topics to be covered include hospital and physician lia- bility, the emergency room, malpractice, informed consent, human experimentation, patients' rights, the right to refuse treat- ment, the living will, unionization of hospi- tal personnel, OSHA, certificate of need, the consumer's role under the National Health Planning and Resources Develop- ment Act of 1974, and confidentiality and privacy of medical records (including PSRO profiles). Program Director and principal lecturer will be George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., author of The Rights of Hospital Patients (Avon, 1975). Other experts will also par- ticipate, both as guest lecturers and as commentators on the lectures. The fee for the entire program, including all course materials, is $75.00 for ASLM members and $90.00 for nonmembers (single ses- sions are $15 for members and $25 for nonmembers). Full time students, interns and residents can register for $30 for ASLM members and $35 for nonmembers. The lecture series will be accredited for continu- ing education credits by the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Federation of Nursing Home Adminis- trators. Physicians may also elect to re- ceive credit from the American Medical Association, Physicians Recognition Award (Category II). For a descriptive brochure, write the ASLM, 454 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215. CIAMERICAN SOCIETY OF LAW & MEDICINE. INC. 1970 GUIDE TO PUBLISHED STANDARDS OF CARE by Elliot L. Sagalf, M.D. Recent court decisions and legislative enactments in the medical and hospital malpractice areas suggest a growing trend toward substantial easing of the traditional plaintiff's burden of proof in defining the standard of professional conduct that he alleges was breached by the defendant physician, hospital or other health-care provider leading thereby to his suffering harm. In an increasing number of jurisdictions, the pool of expert medical witnesses avail- able to plaintiffs in malpractice actions has been significantly enlarged by court or legislature abolition of the long prevalent evidentiary requirement that an expert wit- ness testifying as to the applicable standard of care be from the same community as the defendant (the locality rule) by allowing the expert to be drawn from thesame orsimi/ar community and, in the case of specialists, applying a national standard. Also, in many states, the plaintiff can compel the defendant physician, even though an ad- verse witness, to take the stand to provide through his own testimony adefinition of the standard of care he is alleged to have breached. In regard to the admission in evidence of published standards of professional con- duct and care, several states have, for some time, permitted the introduction, fol- lowing due notice of intent, of medical texts and learned treatises without requiring that the author or authors be made avail- able for cross-examination. Now, with widespread adoption by state legislative bodies of mandatory arbitration and pretrial screening panel hearings in medical mal- practice cases, it can be expected that a wide variety of published definitions of standards of care for physicians, nurses, dentists and hospitals will be made avail- able for inspection and consideration by arbitration board or panel members, and even by juries, to be considered as at least one acceptable mode of professional con- duct against which the action of the defen- dant (or defendants) can be measured. Accordingly, physicians, attorneys and others involved in medical and hospital malpractice actions must be aware of the types and sources of standards of care currently available in published form to avoid the obvious problems that will arise should such writings first come to their attention when produced by the adversary party in a courtroom or other legal forum. To aid in the pretrial or prehearing evalu- ation of a given instance of alleged medical or hospital negligence or other form of malpractice, the following is a listing of categories of currently available published definitions and guidelines of medical care that might be accepted as a standard of care and the major bibliographic tools by which these writings can be located. Al- though every attempt has been made to make this compilation comprehensive, it is recognized that other potentially useful source data undoubtedly exist. To enhance the reference value of this material in future up-dates, Medicolegal News readers are urged to submit additional pertinent infor- mation to the attention of the author. Even If these standards do not clear the evidentiary hurdles of admissibility, they are extremely useful to attorneys and physicians in determining appropriate con- duct and procedures relevant to the issues at bar. Standards Produced by Hospitals Most hospitals publish for internal use a wide variety of material that, in part or in whole, outlines recommended or pre- scribed professional and administrative conduct in the area of patient-care and, therefore, can be considered as their own definitions of minimal acceptable standards of care. Included among these are: admission and discharge procedures for out-palients, in-patients, emergency room, intensive care, recovery room and similar units; rules and regulations affecting staff physicians, department heads, interns Continued on page 7 Vol. 4, No.1

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