Untoward injuries are unacceptably common in medical treatment, at times with tragic consequences for patients. The phrases 'an epidemic of error' and 'the medical toll' have been coined to describe this problem of 'iatrogenic harm', which it has been suggested may have contributed to 98,000 deaths per year in the US. Some of these incidents are the result of negligence on the part of doctors, but more usually they are no more than inevitable concomitants of the complexity of modern healthcare. This book is fundamentally about distinguishing the former from the latter. Although medicine is used as the book's primary example, the points made apply equally to aviation, industrial activities, and many other fields of human endeavour. The book advocates a more informed alternative to the blaming culture which has increasingly come to dominate our response to accidents, whether in the medical field or elsewhere.

This volume questions how individuals and societies ought to deal with crimes committed in the distant past. Agency and responsibility on the part of the wrongdoer are weighed against forgiveness and mercy on the part of the victim. Examples are drawn from all areas of law.

Sixth Edition of leading medical law textbook

This is a jurisprudential examination of the issues surrounding the moral and legal duty to rescue, undertaken by contributors from different disciplines. The book begins with a discussion of the philosophical issues and goes on to examine common law, which has no general duty to rescue.