Ethics and Law

Searches

• Bioethics Literature in PubMed
  Ethics-related abstracts and full text from biomedical journals, meeting proceedings, books, reports, and doctoral theses.
• Medline Free Full Text Journals Search - "Ethics"
  Free, full-text, English language, clinically-focused journal articles indexed in Medline with "Ethics" as a subject focus.
• National Patient Safety Foundation Bibliographic Database
  Search access to the published literature on issues in patient safety. Includes peer-reviewed articles, legislation, government reports, news, media, and industry reports.

News

• CDC Public Health Law News
  A weekly digest of current, worldwide news stories, court opinions, announcements and special features related to public health law and legislation. The News is free and available to anyone with an interest in public health law.
• Medical News Today - Medical Malpractice / Litigation News
  The latest medical and health news headlines directed to an international audience of health professionals. Includes articles and reports of pharmaceutical and biotechnology developments.

Full Text / MultiMedia

• "Malpractice" Powerpoint Lectures
  Powerpoint lectures from medical schools, medical societies, etc. collected by the Google search service.
• 'Lectric Law Medical Malpractice Topic Area
  A malpractice lawyer's view of topics in medical malpractice: news, litigation, standards of care, cases, expert medical consultants and witnesses, etc.
• Ethics in Medicine
  Contains tools to help you reason through difficult cases and bioethics topic overviews. A topic is "Breaking Bad News". University of Washington School of Medicine .
• Issues in Risk Management at Yale
  An online module on risk management and medical malpractice that provides educational material for the busy physician. Includes text notes and images on malpractice, the medical record, patients' rights, criminal vs tort law, and the legal system. Yale-New Haven Hospital, Yale School of Medicine and Center for Advanced Instructional Media, revised February 1998.
• Risk Management Updates from Physicians Insurance
  Advice and guidelines that touch upon a key clinical practice risk management issue.
• Ethics Manual of the American College of Physicians
  A postion paper that addresses the ethical tensions faced by internists in their care of patients. Annals of Internal Medicine.
• The Dr. Witherspoon Malpractice Case Archive
  An article archive of malpractice cases for which a fictitious "Dr. Witherspoon" provides a straightforward, unvarnished explanation of what went wrong and why. Edited by Dr. John A. Kona, orthopedic surgeon .
• The Forensic Panel Letter
  $  REG Search through important cases in the interface of psychiatry and law. The Forensic Panel Letter is an attorneys resource for forensics, which the medical expert professional can utilize to better conceptualize the important trends in law that improve expert witness testimony Fee registration for full text. Subscription fee. Free trial. The Forensic Panel.

Journals

• BioMedCentral Medical Ethics
  An online journal which publishes free, full text peer-reviewed original research articles on all aspects of the prevention, diagnosis and management of medical ethics.
• Journal of Medical Ethics
  Free full text journal articles on ethical aspects of health care, case conferences, book reviews, editorials, correspondence, news, and notes. Medline citations: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?dopt=DocSum&cmd=Search&db=PubMed&orig_db=PubMed&term=loftextHighWire[filter]+AND+0306-6800[ta]+loattrfree+full-text+[filter]. A British Medical Journal Publication.
• The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics
  Articles provide updates on health care legal decisions and policy developments. the journal's readership includes attorneys, physicians, nurses, ethicists, educators, hospital and public administrators, risk managers, pharmacists, social workers, and students. The American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
• Bioethics On-line Service Articles
  Provides abstracts of bioethics journal articles, news accounts, legislative actions and court decisions. Medical College of Wisconsin.
• American Journal of Law & Medicine
  $  REG Articles on health care quality and access, managed care, genetics, reproductive health, informed consent, assisted dying, ethics committees, HIV/AIDS, and public health. Fee registration.
• Bioethics & Medical Ethics Journals at Medbioworld
  A comprehensive directory of weblinks for journals in this specialty.

Textbooks

• Risk Management Sourcebook
  A practical, state-of-the-art medical reference collection of more than 50 loss prevention articles. Covers a wide range of medical, legal, and multispecialty topics, with articles organized into five basic categories: Communication, Practice Guidelines, Litigation/Claims, Professional Conduct, and Clinical Issues. PDF format. The Doctors Company.
• Ethics Manual of the American College of Physicians
  A comprehensive set of articles regarding important ethics issues in the care of patients.
• EUROETHICS Database
  The European bibliographic literature database EUROETHICS covers the subject fields of Medical Ethics and Biomedical Ethics. EUROETHICS integrates national data collections with more than 30,000 references, such as journal articles, monographs, book contributions, electronic documents (hyperlinks to full texts), newspaper articles and grey literature.
• Just Doctoring: Medical Ethics in the Liberal State
  Presents an approach to medical ethical issues focused on diverse problems such as rationing of care, the role of competition in medical care, limits on care for elderly patients, quality assurance and malpractice litigation, and issues on informed consent. Physician Troyen A. Brennan.
• Medical Risk Management
  A textbook-style reference with chapters that offer brief text summaries on legal considerations in delivering quality medical care. The resource is maintained by the Center for Public Health Law- a research center based at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law.
• Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Medical Treatment
  Describes the process which should be followed and the safeguards which should be in place to ensure that decisions to withhold life-prolonging treatments are made appropriately.
• Summary of United States Medical Malpractice Law
  Hypertext documents devoted to medical malpractice laws of each state. Covers state-specific statutes of limitations, attorneys' fees, compensation funds, expert testimony, damage caps, and arbitration. McCullough, Campbell & Lane .

Major Sites / Home Pages

• Bioethics.net - The American Journal of Bioethics
  Peer-reviewed, full text articles about ethical issues in medicine. The website adds commentary, news items, announcements, etc. The journal covers clinical ethics, research ethics, science ethics, ethics in nursing, and bioethics for beginners and ethics committees. University of Pennsylvania.
• Virtualmentor.org
  An American Medical Association site about ethical considerations in medicine.
• Correctional Health Care
  An online resource for news, articles, and events regarding healthcare in prisons. The Corrections Connection.
• National Commission on Correctional Health Care
  Position statements that, along with the published standards, may assist correctional facilities in designing policies and procedures.
• Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
  News, event announcements , and feature articles on clinical ethics and bioethics law. State University of New York at Buffalo.
• Common Good
  A website for an organization dedicated to restoring common sense to American healthcare and malpractice law. This website presents opinions, coverage of ongoing controversies, news, and event announcemnts.
• National Practitioner Data Bank
  A database of adverse actions against a practitioner's llicensure, clinical privileges, professional society membership, and exclusions from Medicare and Medicaid. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• The Doctors' Company
  A physician endorsed professional liability insurance company. This website offers newsletters, feature articles, and challenging cases on risk management, legislation alerts, and tort reform.

Practice Guidelines / FAQs

• Connecticut Regulation of Health and Medicine Statutes
  State regulation policies and procedures for health care.
• Risk Management Guidelines at RMF
  $  REG Risk management guidelines and other materials. Fee registration. Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions.

Cases

• Malpractice Casebook from MPS (UK)
  These cases alert physicians to pitfalls that have caught their colleagues unawares. The Medical Protection Society is the largest mutual medical protection organisation operating internationally.
• Medical Malpractice Case Studies at CAP
  Case of the month that address medical malpractice issues. Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc./ Mutual Protection Trust.
• Ethics Clinical Examinations
  Patient scenarios with checklists for evaluation of candidate physician's interviewing skills. University of Toronto.

CME

• Risk Management Foundation of Harvard CME Online
  Courses which address current risk management issues facing health care providers. Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions.
• Medrisk Malpractice CME
  Programs on reducing malpractice risk management.
• Legal Medicine at AFIP
  Articles concerning legal aspects of medical practice. PDF file format. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
• Risk Management Topics CME
  Information on a specific risk management topic followed by a quiz for one hour of continuing medical education credit. Managerial Technologies Corporation Managerial Technologies Corporation.
• Medical Ethics CME Update at Oklahoma
  $ A CME course on medical ethics. 2 credit hours. Fee transactions. University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
• MedRisk CME Risk Management Coursework
  Offers CME programs on risk management and using the Internet.

Patient Education

• Advance Directives at Partnership for Caring
  Patient education information about "living wills" and the "medical power of attorney". This website offers free state-specific advance directives that are downloadable in PDF format.

Directories

• FindLaw Health Law Internet Directory
  An directory of weblinks to health law documents and resources: disability, government regulation, health care fraud, HIPAA, hospital law, etc.
• Ethics in Biomedicine Weblinks Directory at Karolinska
  Well organized directory to links on bioethics. Karolinska Institute.
• Wikipedia Medical Encyclopedia - Medical Ethics
  A collection of medical subject reviews and topic-oriented articles. The contributions are edited and reviewed by Internet users.
• MedWeb Bioethics
  Well-maintained links to guides, sites, journals, organizations, and documents for a general audience.

Educational Materials

• Risk Management Practice Tips from Mass Mutual
  Useful articles on preventing malpractice, operating the health care facility, and management practice resources and personnel. Medical Mutual Insurance Company of Maine
• End of Life Physician Education Resource Center (EPERC)
  REG Provides a comprehensive collection of educational materials and information about end of life issues. Includes abstracts of peer reviewed educational materials, funding and training opportunities, significant articles, suggested reading. Searchable. Restricted registration or content areas. Medical College of Wisconsin, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
• Health Laws at Cornell Law School
  A directory of US Federal and State statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions related to health. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.
• FDA Medical Devices Adverse Events Database
  A searchable database of reports of adverse events involving specific medical devices.
• A Protocol for Withdrawing Life Support
  A complex technical and interpersonal practice guideline. Steve Miles. M.D.
• International e-Health Code of Ethics
  The goal of the "e-Health Code of Ethics" is to ensure that all people worldwide can confidently, and without risk, realize the full benefits of the Internet to improve their health. Internet Healthcare Coalition .
• Medical Litigation News
  $  REG Summaries of articles that offer expert opinion regarding malpractice prone conditions. Full text of articles are available by subscription to the website or print edition. Fee registration.

Forums

• Biomedical Ethics Mail List
  An automated mail list for ethics discussions. 400+ subscribers.
• Medical Privacy Mail List
  Subscription Address: listproc@essential.org. Subscription Message: subscribe med-privacy firstname lastname Addresses issues related to the privacy of patient records in a digital age. Archived.