Abstract
The article aims to determine the scope and limitations of ethical duties and legal
responsibilities of the medical practitioner within the professional-patient relationship
(PPR), identify shortcomings of the legal framework and gaps in ethical principles, and
propose solutions to them.
It argues that in private law the healthcare shares many similarities with conractual law; therefore, the legal basis for physician-patient relationship is the special
legal capacity of the contract parties and their free will, but ethical basis ‒ their
good faith.
One important finding is that physician right and obligation to refuse is an aspect
of patient safety and quality of healthcare and has to be acknowledged by ethics and
stipulated by law. In addition, it detects that medical professionals are ethically and
legally vulnerable and need special protection. All this calls to carving out the proper
place of medical practitioners’ professional autonomy and freedom in current legal
regulation.
Used materials include literature and scientific publications on clinical and research
bioethics, contractual and medical law, regulatory enactments, court judgments. Methods used in the study include descriptive, analysis, synthesis, dogmatic, induction and deduction; legal interpretation methods such as grammatical and systemic.
responsibilities of the medical practitioner within the professional-patient relationship
(PPR), identify shortcomings of the legal framework and gaps in ethical principles, and
propose solutions to them.
It argues that in private law the healthcare shares many similarities with conractual law; therefore, the legal basis for physician-patient relationship is the special
legal capacity of the contract parties and their free will, but ethical basis ‒ their
good faith.
One important finding is that physician right and obligation to refuse is an aspect
of patient safety and quality of healthcare and has to be acknowledged by ethics and
stipulated by law. In addition, it detects that medical professionals are ethically and
legally vulnerable and need special protection. All this calls to carving out the proper
place of medical practitioners’ professional autonomy and freedom in current legal
regulation.
Used materials include literature and scientific publications on clinical and research
bioethics, contractual and medical law, regulatory enactments, court judgments. Methods used in the study include descriptive, analysis, synthesis, dogmatic, induction and deduction; legal interpretation methods such as grammatical and systemic.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 91-105 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Socrates |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Keywords*
- patient’s rights
- physician’s rights
- physician’s autonomy
- professionalpatient relationship
- right to refuse
- medical liability
Field of Science*
- 5.5 Law
Publication Type*
- 1.2. Scientific article included in INT1 or INT2 category journal of ERIH database