If a person develops a serious illness or is injured in an accident, they will depend on their family physician not only to provide medical care, but also to assist in obtaining employment accommodations, insurance benefits or third-party compensation.  Physicians have legal and ethical duties in these circumstances.  In this article, Susanne Raab describes a physician’s duties in this medical-legal environment.

This is the first article in our 8 part series on medical malpractice litigation. One of the first issues the plaintiff’s counsel must consider before started a medical malpractice action is which health providers owed their client a duty of care. In many cases this issue is straightforward – but there can be special circumstances that can call into question whether a duty exists.  In this article, Andrea Donaldson reviews the foundation principles of the duty of care and considers these principles in the context of a number of cases.

Doctors have a duty to act with the utmost loyalty and good faith when dealing with their patients, and must never allow their personal interests to conflict with their professional duty.  This duty is called a “fiduciary duty.”  In this article Andrea Donaldson reviews a number of infamous lawsuits in which physicians breached this duty, and discusses a recent application of these principles in the case law.

It is recognized that patients have a right to make informed decisions about their medical care. Yet somehow, when it comes to the deciding between a vaginal birth and a caesarean section, in the past it has been acceptable for a physician to refuse a patient’s request if it was not, in the doctor’s opinion, medically necessary. Lindsay McGivern reviews recent policy developments that acknowledge that a woman’s preferences should be taken into consideration.

Chronic pain is part of many personal injury, motor vehicle, and medical malpractice claims. Since chronic pain is something that can’t be seen or measured, it can be difficult for the courts to understand the severity of the pain, or the impact it can have on a plaintiff’s day-to-day functioning. Do recent advances in neuro-imaging such as functional MRI (fMRI) offer potential solutions to these challenges? In this paper, I will review developments in neuro-imaging and their applicability in negligence claims.