Medical Law And Ethics

Medical Law and Ethics provides the perfect starting point for any student new to this exciting and often controversial area of law. Drawing on her experience of teaching undergraduate students, as well as time spent practising law for a medical research centre, Leanne Bell presents a lively account of the key areas of the subject. She seeks to go beyond just explaining the legal rules and instead places their development into a wider social and ethical context, challenging you to question how well the law answers or, indeed, can ever hope to answer the often emotionally charged questions at the heart of regulating a contentious area such as medicine. The book uses a range of features to help deepen your knowledge of the area: Key case boxes highlight and identify the landmark cases you will need to remember. Ethical question boxes prompt you to reflect on the most challenging and emotive areas of the subject. Self-test questions give you a chance to test how well you’ve grasped the concepts in each chapter. Example problem questions help you practice assessment-style questions. Leanne Bell is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Northumbria University, where she teaches and researches Medical Law. She previously worked as the in-house solicitor for the North East England Stem Cell Research Institute and so has both academic and practice credentials in this area. Few subjects provoke as much controversy or debate as that of medical care, and the law that governs such an emotive area finds itself with the near-impossible task of simultaneously trying to regulate the medical profession and healthcare provision whilst upholding the rights of the millions of people who use those services every year. Medical Law combines an accessible explanation of the complex and challenging legal rules of medical care in England and Wales with a stimulating examination of the social, political and ethical arguments such care provokes. It examines a broad range of issues, from the structure and organisation of the NHS, through the rules of clinical negligence, as well as focussing on the legal and ethical concerns around such deeply contentious areas as surrogacy, organ donation, abortion and euthanasia. Written very much with newcomers to the area in mind, Leanne Bell lucidly outlines not just what the law is, but how it has developed over time and also provides insights as to how advances in medical technology and techniques may call for it to evolve in the future.