Medical Law and Ethics Discussion Questions - Essay Example

1. Discuss the significance of common law for the healthcare professional . A healthcare professional is oftentimes exposed to the possibility of malpractice suits due to certain conditions that pre-exist or come to exist during a patients healthcare program. When these medical errors occur the patients turn to common law action of medical malpractice in order to seek financial remuneration for the mistakes in treatment. These common laws were put into place in order to protect the healthcare professionals from frivolous lawsuits brought about by patients and at the same time, offers the patients a proper course of legal action within which to hold the healthcare professional liable for his actions. 2. Explain what is meant by the statement,"It is easier to prevent negligence than it is to defend it.

" Since doctors and other healthcare professionals are highly exposed to malpractice lawsuits due to the delicate nature of their patient treatments, they are forced to buy expensive malpractice insurance coverage in order to protect themselves from suits. Doctors choose to cover all their bases when treating patients by ordering a battery of tests which may or may not be necessary during the course of the patients treatment in order to have hard documentation that they took all possible courses of action during the patients treatment.

Thus they oftentimes successfully prevent negligence instead of having to defend themselves from negligence accusations in the future. 3. Differentiate between common law and statutory law. Common law is applied to cases wherein a judge decides on the outcome of the case. Therefore, common law is created by judges and based upon the merits of the current case or past precedents. Statutory law on the other hand is created by the legislative arm or government of a country. The government has the power to mete out what is deemed to be the proper punishment for certain crimes.

Statutory laws also apply to judicial cases which the courts refer to the government for final decisions. 4. Explain what the numbering system in public law means. The numbering system in public law, also known as the Key Number System is an indexing system used to organize case law materials. This method helps speed up the research time of legal professionals and insures that the material they find is accurate and relevant to their cases since the numbering system applies to the issues that cover the law one is looking up. 5. What is meant by burden of proof?

Burden of proof refers to the evidence presented before the court of law by the prosecution or defense wherein they have to prove any and all accusations that they make against the complainant or defendant in the courts of law. They must present sufficient evidence to the courts in order to convince the judge or jury of their innocence or guilt. 6. What is a subpoena and who can accept it? Subpoena is a Latin word that means “under punishment”. It is the means by which a court compels a citizen to appear as a witness at a trial or risk a punishment in the event that he fails to do so on the court appointed date and time.

Subpoenas are based upon and issued to the witnesses contained in the list of the defense or prosecution and are written in letter form as a “request” for the witnesses presence for a testimony in a case.