Medicine, patients and the law

Law and healing is a colourful and critical account of the longstanding ‘marriage’ between two fundamental pillars of human society, law and medicine. The book addresses medico-legal history, exploring aspects of English law’s fascinating and sometimes acrimonious relationship with healing and healers. It challenges assumptions that medical law is new and that when law engaged with medicine, judges deferred to the ‘medical man’. It traces the regulation of healing from the dominance of the Church, and goes on to examine how the battles between different groups of lay ‘doctors’, physicians, surgeons and apothecaries were fought out in the law courts, the Royal Court and Parliament. Malpractice litigation and predictions of malpractice crises are shown to date back to the fourteenth century. Evidence of judicial deference is scant until late in the nineteenth century. Medical law today addresses moral dilemmas arising in medical practice and biomedical science. Considering historical perceptions of the human body from the womb to the grave, this work identifies themes persisting through medico-legal history and how history repeats itself. The book assesses both how English law responded to changes in ‘scientific’ understanding of bodies and how ‘science’, or what was thought to be science, influenced law. Bizarre theories about biology are seen to buttress laws of primogeniture and legal incapacities imposed on married women. The book considers how in the nineteenth century medical practitioners gradually acquired a strong voice in law-making on morals as much as medical practice.

Embryo research, cloning, assisted conception, neonatal care, saviour siblings, organ transplants, drug trials – modern developments have transformed the field of medicine almost beyond recognition in recent decades and the law struggles to keep up.

In this highly acclaimed and very accessible book Margaret Brazier and Emma Cave provide an incisive survey of the legal situation in areas as diverse as fertility treatment, patient consent, assisted dying, malpractice and medical privacy.

The sixth edition of this book has been fully revised and updated to cover the latest cases, from assisted dying to informed consent; legislative reform of the NHS, professional regulation and redress; European regulations on data protection and clinical trials; and legislation and policy reforms on organ donation, assisted conception and mental capacity.

Essential reading for healthcare professionals, lecturers, medical and law students, this book is of relevance to all whose perusal of the daily news causes wonder, hope and consternation at the advances and limitations of medicine, patients and the law.

The Basics of International Law presents a comprehensive and accessible entry-level text which provides the most essential and basic rules and facts of international law in pocket format. This quick reference text offers UK-specific examples to contextualise international law concepts and directs the reader to further sources. Topics covered include: the place of international law in the national legal order; subjects of international law; sources of public international law; treaty law; jurisdiction; immunities; state responsibility; settlement of disputes; the enforcement of international law; peace and security; the law of international organisations; the United Nations; other global international organisations; regional intergovernmental organisations; international human rights; international criminal law; international economic law; and, international environmental law.