Medicine and Law
The scope for the interaction between medicine and law is vast. From issues involving the impact of law on medical practice, such as informed consent, negligent diagnosis and treatment, confidentiality, human reproduction, and euthanasia, to issues involving the impact of medicine on law, such as postmortem investigations, intoxication, degrees of incapacity, and assessments of personal injury.

As is the case with other interrelated fields, the fields of medicine and law should stand in a mutually enriching and beneficial relationship, in step with HMM. History has shown, however, that they have the propensity to confuse and even to antagonise one another. Medicine has not always appreciated the intrusion of the law into its affairs, and the law has not always properly utilised medical expertise in instances where this is required.

In sound partnership, medical law reinforces the legitimacy of medical practice, whilst integrated application of medicine in a legal context reinforces the legitimacy of those legal applications that inherently demand medical consultation. For there to be a sound partnership, mutual understanding and insight are required; hence the need for interdisciplinary specialisation. Apart from the numerous policy-making instances where perspective is required, there are also many cases where individuals in practice will be at a loss without the necessary perspective. For instance, on the one hand, a lawyer working on a case that has a strong medical component needs to have perspective on the intricacies involved and have an essential understanding of the most relevant medical details, while, on the other hand, a medical practitioner who has to compile a report or give evidence on a medical matter in a legal context, must understand some essential intricacies of that context in order to perform within it.

The interdisciplinary specialist responsible for this specific area is Dr Roché Steyn, Medicolegal Specialist. He may be contacted at rs@multiplin.com.


Specific services:

*Preparing the medical expert for the courtroom.

*Challenging expert testimony in court.

*Defending expert testimony in court.

*Legal strategy in malpractice cases or cases that involve a significant medical component.

*Addressing malpractice concerns or other ethical or legal dilemmas in medicine.

*Informing the decisions of policy-makers in areas involving law, medicine and ethics.

*Project management in medical/medicolegal contexts.