By Rammina Yassaie. On 7 January this year, Bristol GP Patrick Hart, was jailed for 12 months for damaging petrol pump screens, which he describes as “an act of care” in protest against continued fossil fuel extraction; the environmental consequences of which are considered to be the greatest health threat of the 21st century. Hart’s […]
Category: In the Courts
The delicate balance between aggressive treatments and palliative care
By Ilaria Bertini. In recent months the story of Indi Gregory has been brought to light by the media as another dreadful story of life and death involving a critically ill 8-month-old baby with no prospect of recovery. When Indi was born, she was admitted as a PICU patient at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham […]
The moral vulnerability of clinician teams
By Bernadette Wren. The authority of clinicians is underpinned by a responsibility to ensure that all treatment decisions are made at the intersection of evidence, law and ethics. We hear a lot in the public square about the science and practice of evidence-gathering, much of it unrealisable. And occasionally the law gets a look-in. But […]
The Supreme Court on consent for treatment: practical but unfair?
By Abeezar I Sarela. On 12 July 2023, the Supreme Court issued its judgment in McCulloch v Forth Valley Health Board. This judgment resolves a contentious issue in contemporary legal and ethical paradigms of consent for medical treatment; so, it requires careful attention. In an earlier blogpost, I discussed that, as per the ruling of […]
Should doctors be held to higher moral standards than others?
By Daniel Sokol In a highly publicised case, Dr Arora – a general practitioner – was suspended for a month after the Medical Practitioners Tribunal deemed her dishonest for telling a medical colleague that she had been promised a laptop when no such promise had been made. The Tribunal noted that Dr Arora’s exaggeration brought […]
Urgency, Delayed Decision-making and Ethics in the Court of Protection
By Dominic Wilkinson. [Cross post from the Practical Ethics blog] On 11th June 2021, I was a public observer (via MS Teams) of a case in the Court of Protection: Case No. 1375980T Re GU (also blogged about by Jenny Kitzinger here). The case was (though I did not know it beforehand) related closely to issues that I […]
Is medico-legal paternalism still rife in UK paediatric best interest decisions?
By Michal Pruski. The UK case of Alta Fixsler is reigniting the debate on paediatric best interest decisions in the case of end of life considerations. The two-year old’s Jewish parents want her to be transferred to Israel to be taken care of by clinicians sharing their religious and moral outlooks. Meanwhile the NHS trust […]
Supreme Court rules on the first prosecution of a Dutch doctor since the euthanasia act
Eva C.A. Asscher and Suzanne van de Vathorst. On April 21st the Supreme Court passed judgement on the case of the first doctor to be prosecuted since the 2002 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act. In September 2019 a Dutch nursing home doctor performing euthanasia on a patient with severe […]
Can survival be a harm? The German Federal Court of Justice rules on a claim for damages after life-sustaining treatment
Ulrich Pfeifer and Ruth Horn. Should it be permissible to convict a doctor who has performed life-sustaining treatment (LST) without medical indication? At first sight, the answer seems obvious: a medical intervention is only lawful if there is 1) valid consent and 2) a medical necessity that is medical indication. In the absence of either […]
Stay in Your Lane: On the National Rifle Association’s Response to Physicians’ Support for a Public Health Approach to Firearms-Related Violence
By Christian Chartier and Philippe April. On July 21st, 2018, the American College of Physicians’ (ACP) Board of Regents approved a policy paper commissioned to reiterate the ACP’s support for a public health approach to firearms-related violence. On November 7th, eight days after the article’s eventual publication, the National Rifle Association (NRA) issued a reply […]