ABA Family Legal Guide

Health-Care Law

Regulating Health-Care Professionals

Glenn knows she is overweight and needs to lose about a hundred pounds. She feels desperate until she sees an advertisement in a newspaper about a medication that helps people lose weight. She calls the number at the bottom of the advertisement and makes an appointment with the weight loss clinic. When she goes to the clinic, she is seated in the doctor's office. Glenn is a smart woman. She looks closely at the framed certificates on the wall until she finds the doctor's license. If the doctor is licensed, he must know what he is doing. Or does he?

Jackie thought she had a cold. It started in February with a cough. When it did not go away by March, Jackie went to see her doctor. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic and told Jackie that if her cold did not get better within the next two weeks to make another appointment. Jackie took the antibiotic off and on for a couple of weeks. Her cold did not clear up, but she did not make another appointment for several months. By that time her cough was worse. When she finally returned to the doctor's office, the doctor ordered a CT scan of Jackie's upper chest. The scan showed that Jackie had a tumor that turned out to be Hodgkin's disease. Jackie started chemotherapy the next week. Her prognosis is good, but it would be better if she had returned to the doctor sooner rather than later. Jackie is angry that the doctor did not tell her it could be something other than a cold. She wants to know if she can sue for malpractice. Can she?

Adequate regulation of the medical profession is crucial. Care that falls short of a high standard can result in injury or death, as illustrated in the hypothetical situations above. This section covers the licensing of health-care professionals and medical malpractice, and also explores the legal and ethical issues in experimental research on humans.

Subsections

1. Licensing of Doctors, Nurses, and Hospitals
2. Medical Malpractice
3. Research on Humans