2006 Medical Law Forum    

The inaugural Slater & Gordon Medical Law Forum was held on 3 May 2006, kindly hosted by The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in conjunction with the Australian & New Zealand Institute of Health, Law and Ethics. The Forum theme was:

“Informing a patient of what treatment has been given and what has taken place while doing so, whether or not there has been a catastrophe, is integrally and necessarily part of giving medical treatment to a person.” Or is it? Much excellent work has been done in Australia over recent years to encourage medical adverse event reporting so as to facilitate system improvement by the establishment of guidelines. More recently, limited ethical obligations have been recognised under the Medical Practice Act NSW and followed elsewhere. But there remains no comprehensive ethical or legal duty throughout Australia to disclose such adverse events to patients by a medical practitioner in relation to the practitioners own outcomes, or those of other practitioners.

The Forum sought to examine the current position on disclosure of adverse events to patients in the context of guidelines, ethics and law; and addressed the relative benefits of each. A detailed article addressing some of the legal and ethical issues discussed at the Forum was subsequently written by Tina Cockburn (Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology) and Bill Madden (National Practice Group Leader, Medical Negligence, Slater & Gordon) and published as “Bundaberg and beyond: Duty to disclose adverse events to patients” in the Journal of Law & Medicine – (2007) 14 JLM 501, May 2007.

If you have any questions about the Forum or wish to be added to our e-newsletter list, please email: kateyoung@slatergordon.com.au

Speakers:

•  Professor Bruce Barraclough, Clinical Excellence Commission (330Kb)
•  Dr Stuart Dorney, The Children's Hospital at Westmead (41Kb)
•  Mr Andrew Dix, NSW Medical Board (56Kb)
•  Assoc Professor Cameron Stewart, Macquarie University (195Kb)
•  Ms Leanne O'Shannessy, NSW Health (57Kb)
•  Dr Andrew Pesce, AMA (18Kb)
•  Professor Stephen Leeder, University of Sydney (34Kb)
  

Links to Materials:

• NSW Medical Board, Code of Professional Conduct
• AMA Code of Ethics 2004
• Wighton v Arnot [2005] NSWSC 637
• Queensland Public Hospitals Commission of Inquiry
•  AHLB: Madden & Cockburn, Duty to Disclose Medical Error (113Kb)
• GMC: Good Medical Practice

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