Medical Law: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Foster, C. (2013). Medical Law: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is volume 345 of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, about 140 pages in eleven chapters, followed by a list of the cases discussed, a guide to further reading and an index. Charles Foster is a barrister practising in medical law, a Fellow of Green Templeton College and a tutor in medical law and ethics at the University of Oxford; he read law and veterinary medicine at Cambridge. The publisher's description sets out the method: media coverage of contentious medical questions sheds little real light, so the reader has to go into particular cases and then to the principles behind them, which Foster illustrates with well-known cases. The chapters are short, between about six and nineteen pages.

Chapter 1: Origins and legacies

The opening chapter traces where medical law comes from and what it has inherited, setting up the principles that later chapters apply.

Chapter 2: The enforcement of medical law

A short chapter on how medical law is enforced, before the book turns to its substantive topics.

Chapter 3: Before birth

One of the longer chapters, on the law before birth. The publisher's description places the status of the embryo, abortion and in vitro fertilization among the book's subjects, which belong here.

Chapter 4: Confidentiality and privacy

Patient confidentiality and privacy, one of the topics the publisher singles out.

Chapter 5: Consent

The law of consent to treatment, including informed consent.

Chapter 6: Clinical negligence

The longest chapter, at about nineteen pages, on liability when treatment goes wrong.

Chapter 7: Research on human subjects

The legal regulation of research involving people.

Chapter 8: Resource allocation

The shortest chapter, on the law's approach to distributing limited healthcare resources.

Chapter 9: The end of life

The second-longest chapter, covering the issues the publisher names at the end of life: the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Chapter 10: Organ donation and the ownership of body parts

Organ transplantation and the question of who owns parts of the human body.

Chapter 11: The future of medical law

A closing chapter on where the subject is heading.

Key Concepts

Foundations (Chapters 1–2)

• Cases and principles: the book's stated method of moving from particular cases to the principles behind them.
• Enforcement: the means by which the rules of medical law are made to bite on practice.

The patient and the professional (Chapters 4–6)

• Confidentiality: the duty to keep patient information private, and its limits.
• Informed consent: the requirement that treatment rests on the patient's agreement, given with adequate information.
• Clinical negligence: legal liability for harm caused by substandard medical care.

Beginning and end of life (Chapters 3, 9)

• Status of the embryo: the legal standing of the embryo and fetus, central to abortion and IVF.
• Withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment: when treatment that keeps a patient alive may lawfully stop.
• Assisted suicide and euthanasia: the law's response to requests for help in dying.

Research, resources and the body (Chapters 7–8, 10)

• Research on human subjects: legal protection of people who take part in medical research.
• Resource allocation: how the law treats decisions about rationing healthcare.
• Ownership of body parts: whether, and by whom, parts of the human body can be owned.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Wide coverage in a small space. The eleven chapters touch most of the topics that a medical law module covers, from conception and embryo research to consent, negligence, research, rationing, organ donation and the end of life, in about 140 pages.
• Case-led. The publisher stresses that the book works through particular, often notorious, cases to reach the principles behind them, and it includes a list of the cases discussed, which makes it easy to follow up the decisions in a law report or a textbook.
• Readable. A review in the Medical Law Review (by M. Fay, volume 23, 2015) is quoted by the publisher as calling the book "colourful and engaging", and the publisher addresses it to healthcare professionals, policy-makers and law students as well as general readers.
• An author who works in both law and ethics. Foster practises medical law at the Bar and teaches medical law and ethics at Oxford, which suits a book that moves between legal rules and the principles behind them.

Limitations

• Dated in places. The book was published in 2013 and has not been revised. It therefore predates later landmarks in English medical law, such as the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board on informed consent and the move to deemed consent for organ donation in England in 2020. Chapters 5, 9 and 10 in particular should be read alongside an up-to-date textbook.
• Very short treatment per topic. Several chapters run to fewer than ten pages, so each topic is introduced rather than analysed in depth. The book cannot substitute for a textbook in a module with problem questions or examinations.
• No chapter on mental health law. The contents give mental health law and mental capacity no chapter of their own; modules that cover them in depth will need other sources.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the shortest and most informal entry point to the medical law books on this list, best read before the course starts or in its first weeks. Medicine, Patients and the Law by Margaret Brazier, Emma Cave and Rob Heywood is the natural next step: a fuller, current survey of medical law in England and Wales written for students and general readers alike. The two textbooks by Jonathan Herring and Shaun Pattinson, both titled Medical Law and Ethics, set out the statutes, cases and guidance for each topic together with the competing ethical arguments; one of them, or the survey by Brazier and co-authors, should be the main text for a module, with this book as a preview.

Mason & McCall Smith's Law and Medical Ethics, now edited by Anne-Maree Farrell and Edward Dove, is a long-established and detailed account that also covers Scots law. Emily Jackson's Medical Law: Text, Cases, and Materials combines commentary with extracts from cases, statutes and debate, and suits students who want to work from the primary materials. Both are for depth after the basics are in place.

How to Use This Book

The book suits anyone approaching medical law for the first time: law students before a medical law or healthcare law module, medical and nursing students meeting the law in their training, and general readers. No legal or medical background is assumed.

A practical approach:

• Read it straight through. At about 140 pages it can be read in a few sittings, and the chapters build an overview that is more useful whole than in parts. Chapters 1 and 2 frame the rest and should not be skipped.
• Use it as a map. For each chapter, note the main cases and the principle each one stands for, using the list of cases at the back. That list then becomes a checklist for the fuller treatment in the course textbook.
• Update as you go. Check Chapter 5 (consent), Chapter 9 (the end of life) and Chapter 10 (organ donation) against a current textbook, since the law in these areas has moved since 2013. Chapter 11's discussion of the future of medical law is worth reading with that later history in mind.
• Follow the further reading. The guide to further reading at the end points to fuller treatments of each topic.

Readers who enjoy the book's case-based approach can go next to a casebook such as Jackson's for the judgments themselves, or to the survey by Brazier, Cave and Heywood for a current account of the same ground.