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This book describes clearly how legislation can be used to advance the rights and entitlements of people with mental health problems. Straightforward and practical, it provides useful information on how to address disabilities so these people may enjoy full citizenship. It presents the key issues succinctly and illustrates these with legislative examples from around the world. This book documents the role that law can play, at all levels, in combating such discrimination and abuse.

Everyday Medical Ethics and Law is based on the core chapters of Medical Ethics Today, focussing on the practical issues and dilemmas common to all doctors. It includes chapters on the law and professional guidance relating to consent, treating people who lack capacity, treating children and young people, confidentiality and health records. The title is UK-wide, covering the law and guidance in each of the four nations.  Each chapter has a uniform structure which makes it ideal for use in learning and teaching. \"10 Things You Need to Know About...\" introduces the key points of the topic, Setting the Scene explains where the issues occur in real life and why doctors need to understand them, and then key definitions are followed by explanations of different scenarios. The book uses real cases to illustrate points and summary boxes to highlight key issues throughout. Whilst maintaining its rigorous attention to detail, Everyday Medical Ethics and Law is an easy read reference book for busy, practising doctors.

Although informed consent for clinical treatment has become a vital part of contemporary medical practice, it means different things in different contexts, is variably practised and rarely achieves the theoretical ideal. In this review, we focus on the clinical practice of informed consent. We first describe what we know about informed consent: what it is, where it came from and what purposes it serves. We then describe several limitations that complicate the practice of informed consent. Finally, we make several practical suggestions as to how clinicians might optimally approach the informed consent process. 79 references

Patients and clinicians should embrace the opportunitiesOn 5 April a new federal rule will require US healthcare providers to give patients access to all the health information in their electronic medical records without charge.1 This new information sharing rule from the 21st Century Cures Act of 20162 mandates rapid, full access to test results, medication lists, referral information, and clinical notes in electronic formats, on request.The US is not alone in providing patients with full online access to their electronic health records. In Sweden, patients gained access to their records between 2012 and 2018.3 Estonian citizens have had full access since 2005.4 The sharing of personal health information isn’t without precedent in the US: around 55 million people already have access to their online clinical notes,5 and many more have access to laboratory results and other parts of their records. But for some US clinicians, the new rule may feel like a shock.6To patient groups, however, it is the culmination of 25 years of advocacy and relationship building with clinicians, researchers, and policy …

Arizona State University agreed to pay $700,000 to the Havasupai Indian tribe to settle legal claims that university researchers improperly used tribe members' blood samples in genetic research. Michelle Mello and Leslie Wolf write that this case illuminates the clashing values that have driven debate on research on stored biospecimens. On April 20, 2010, Arizona State University (ASU) agreed to pay $700,000 to 41 members of the Havasupai Indian tribe to settle legal claims that university researchers improperly used tribe members' blood samples in genetic research. 1 The settlement closes a difficult chapter for both parties but leaves open a bedeviling question for genetic research: What constitutes adequate informed consent for biospecimens collected for research to be stored and used in future, possibly unrelated studies? The case illuminates the clashing values that have driven debate in this area and the importance of understanding the study population's perspectives. The Havasupai suit stemmed . . .

Fifty years ago, George J. Annas and Joseph Healey introduced the concept of a “patient rights advocate” in their seminal 1974 article published in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Annas expanded this vision in the ACLU Handbook, The Rights of Hospitalized Patients, later broadening its scope to all medical settings. This essay traces the evolution of patient advocacy, highlighting pivotal milestones: the advent of cancer navigators, the rise of the patient safety movement, the establishment of patient advocacy organizations, the development of Patient Advocate Offices in hospitals, and the emergence of independent advocates with board certification. It also examines the impact of advocacy on healthcare outcomes, costs, and patient-provider satisfaction, and explores future directions for this vital and growing profession.

The UK government has recently committed to adopting a new policy—dubbed ‘Martha’s Rule’—which has been characterised as providing patients the right to rapidly access a second clinical opinion in urgent or contested cases. Support for the rule emerged following the death of Martha Mills in 2021, after doctors failed to admit her to intensive care despite concerns raised by her parents. We argue that framing this issue in terms of patient rights is not productive, and should be avoided. Insofar as the ultimate goal of Martha’s Rule is the provision of a clinical service that protects patient safety, an approach that focuses on the obligations of the health system—rather than the individual rights of patients—will better serve this goal. We outline an alternative approach that situates rapid clinical review as part of a suite of services aimed at enhancing and protecting patient care. This approach would make greater progress towards addressing the difficult systemic issues that Martha’s Rule does not, while also better engaging with the constraints of clinical practice.

Role of Physicians on Ethics Committees after DobbsDetermining the legality of a necessary procedure such as abortion lies outside the domain of ethics committees, and committees that take on such a task contribute to the erosion of patient autonomy.

On 19 July 2016, three medical organisations filed a federal lawsuit against representatives from several Vermont agencies over the Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. The law is similar to aid-in-dying (AID) laws in four other US states, but the lawsuit hinges on a distinctive aspect of Vermont's law pertaining to patients' rights to information. The lawsuit raises questions about whether, and under what circumstances, there is an ethical obligation to inform terminally ill patients about AID as an end-of-life option. Much of the literature on clinical communication about AID addresses how physicians should respond to patient requests for assisted dying, but neglects the question of how physicians should approach patients who may not know enough about AID to request it. In this article, I examine the possibility of an affirmative duty to inform terminally ill patients about AID in light of ethical concerns about professional responsibilities to patients and the maintenance of the patient–provider relationship. I suggest that we should not take for granted that communication about AID ought to be patient-initiated, and that there may be circumstances in which physicians have good reasons to introduce the topic themselves. By identifying ethical considerations that ought to inform such discussions, I aim to set an agenda for future bioethical research that adopts a broader perspective on clinical communication about AID.

Deeply held religious beliefs may conflict with some aspects of medical practice. But doctors cannot make moral judgments on behalf of patients