HCD112 - Medical Law and Ethics

This course presents basic legal and ethical issues related to the medical field. Topics include physician/patient confidentiality, HIPAA, standard of care for health professionals, medical malpractice vs. negligence, criminal vs. civil division of law, privileged communication in medical records, and ethics. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to present researched information on a medical topic utilizing the subject matter covered in class.

Medical Ethics

Bioethics Web Resources
Links to a variety of bioethical concerns including ethics codes, case studies and journals

Center for Bioethics
Links to sites covering a range of bioethical issues as well as educational resources and publications

Ethics
An article from the Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health

Ethics in Emergency Medicine
Article from eMedicine by Eric Isaacs on the ethics of emergency care and patient choice

Ethics in Medicine
Guidelines on the ethics of an extensive list of topics including confidentiality, do not resuscitate orders, end-of-life issues, informed consent and more from the University of Washington

Ethics Manual
Position paper on the 4th edition of the Ethics Manual of the American College of Physicians

NIH Bioethics on the Web
Links to sites covering a range of bioethical issues

Medical Law

Martindale’s Medical Law Center
Dictionaries, court opinions and decisions

Medical/Legal Issues
Includes advance directives, capacity and competency, confidentiality, informed consent, medical malpractice, surrogate decision making from the Merck Manual

National Health Law Program
Links, documents, and more subdivided by topic

Malpractice

Insurance Information Institute
News and links to the hot topics in medical malpractice

Malpractice
An article from the Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health

Medi-Smart
Nursing law and risk management

MoreLaw.com
Database of court cases on various topics. Select a state(s), case description and medical malpractice to find relevant cases.

Policy Almanac
Medical malpractice from the Almanac of Policy Issues from the US General Accounting Office

USA Today
"Hype Outraces Facts in Malpractice Debate" USAToday, 3/4/2003

Legal Terms

Law Dictionary
Legal dictionary

Legal Glossary
From the US Courts system

MedLaw
Current events and other resources related to medical law and practice.

Nolo.com
Legal glossary

US Courts Glossary
Glossary of legal terms from the US Courts

Additional Sites of Interest

American Association of Medical Assistants
Professional Association for MAs includes a library of resources for those interested in the profession

American Medical Association

American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics
Links to back issues of several journals, multimedia presentations and research

National Center for Health Statistics
Primary source of statistical data in the medical field

National Guidelines Clearinghouse
Portal sponsored by the US Department of Health & Human Services offers access to evidence-based clinical practice guidelines

Virtual Mentor
Current issue of the Virtual Mentor from the American Medical Association