Medical Negligence has been on the rise in several countries.
Is it necessary to include Medical law education in the training of health professionals?
Most certainly. Not simply because of the increase in incidence of medical negligence but because many healthcare professionals have statutory roles and an increasing involvement in regulatory affairs
I inform students very early on in their studies that medical law and ethics are not an adjunct to medical education but an integral and essential part of it.
We have a plethora of nightmare scenarios where medical law and ethics was separated from medical practice and where that happens Primum non nocere ceases to exist. I recommend reading Faust's Gold by Dr Steven Ungerleider to see what happens when ideology supplants law & ethics among Doctors.
Truly not an adjunct but it remains so because most health training curricula have not included medical law education.
Definitely, it will help in better outcome in health related litigation.
Medical law is already a part of the graduate medical education programme (MBBS) curriculum in India, and has seen its teaching-learning hours enhanced since the year 2019. Medial law and ethics are more relevant now than ever before as patients are already wiser (when hey come for consultation with the doctor) with the exposure to social media.
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