Legal issues in medicine 515
Professor P L Waller
15 points * One 3-hour session per week * The visits program consists of a minimum of two days from 9 am to 4.30 pm * Second semester * Clayton
The class will consist of an approximately equal number of students from the Faculty of Law and from the Faculty of Medicine. In the mid-semester vacation all students will participate in a short structured visits program. Law students must have completed LAW2200 (Torts 200) and LAW3300 (Criminal law and procedure 300). Medical students must have completed fourth year. The subject introduces students to ethical and legal issues and concepts fundamental to the patient-doctor relationship, and to the practice of medicine generally. Major themes include the regulation of the practice of medicine; basic medical and clinical sciences, and ethical and scientific principles which govern clinical practice; consent to medical procedures and its legal implications; confidentiality; refusal of medical treatment and limiting life-sustaining treatment; law and psychiatry; ethics and law on the acquisition and use of human tissue for transplantation, and for therapeutic and scientific purposes; novel birth technologies and termination of pregnancy.
Assessment
Two class tests (30 minutes each) 20% each * Written research paper on approved subject (4000 words maximum): 60% * Students may submit a report of up to 1000 words on the the visits program and a research paper of at least 2000 words: 60% together
Prescribed texts
Cases and materials on legal issues in medicine Legibook, 1995