Legal Medicine Midterms Notes
Legal Medicine Midterms Notes
Legal Medicine Midterms Notes
Is refusal unlawful?
NO. If there is strict compliance with the procedure
on transfer, it is not construed as refusal.
Transfer of Patients
After the hospital or medical clinic mentioned
above shall have administered medical treatment
and support, it may cause the transfer of the patient
to an appropriate hospital consistent with the needs
of the patient, preferably to a government hospital,
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The hospital can choose the guarantor or the comaker. It has the right to make sure that the comaker is capable of paying or fulfilling the
obligation.
Case: Manila Doctors v. Chua and Ty
Ruling: The operation of private pay hospitals and
medical clinics is impressed with public interest and
imbued with a heavy social responsibility. But the
hospital is also a business, and, as a business, it has
a right to institute all measures of efficiency
commensurate to the ends for which it is designed,
especially to ensure its economic viability and
survival. And in the legitimate pursuit of economic
considerations, the extent to which the public may
be served and cured is expanded, the pulse and life
A patient cannot be detained in a hospital for nonpayment of the hospital bill The form of restraint
must be total; movement must be restrained in all
directions. If restraint is partial, e.g., in a particular
direction with freedom to proceed in another, the
restraint on the person's liberty is not total.
However, the hospital may legally detain a
patient against his will when he is a detained or
convicted prisoner, or when the patient is
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IV. RECIPROCITY
The registration or issuance of license of a foreigner
professional rests in the PRC. The requirements for
registration or licensing, however, must be
substantially the same as those required and
contemplated by the laws of the Philippines. It is
further required that the laws of the foreign start
allow the citizens of the Philippines to practice their
profession on the same basis, grant, and privileges
as those enjoyed by the citizens of the foreign
country.
V. PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION
Case: Lim v. CA
Facts: Petitioner Nelly Lim and Respondent Juan
Lim are lawfully married to each other. Juan filed a
petition for annulment of marriage in the ground
that Nelly has been suffering from schizophrenia
before, during, and even after their marriage.
Case: Krohn v. CA
Facts: A confidential psychiatric evaluation report
is being presented in evidence before the trial court
in a petition for annulment of marriage grounded on
psychological incapacity. The witness testifying on
the report is the husband who initiated the
annulment proceedings, not the physician who
prepared the report. The subject of the evaluation
report is the wife, who invokes the rule on
privileged communication between physician and
patient, and seeks to enjoin her husband from
disclosing the contents of the report. RTC allowed
the admission of the psychiatric evaluation report as
evidence because it is material to the case and
because there was no objection on the part of the
wife during the time it was referred to in the
complaint. CA affirmed.
LEGAL MEDICINE
Branch of medicine that deals with the application
of medical knowledge to the purposes of law and in
the administration of justice.
MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE
Deals with the aspect of law and legal concepts in
relation with the practice of medicine
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Composition:
Chairman - Secretary of Education
Members:
1. Secretary of Health
2. Director, Bureau of Private Schools
3. Chairman, Board of Medicine
4. Representative, PMA
5. Council of Deans, APMC
6. Dean, UP-College of Medicine
Functions:
1. To determine and prescribe the requirements
for admission into a recognized college of
Medicine;
2. To determine and prescribe requirements for
the minimum physical facilities;
SOURCES OF LAW
- Constitution
- Laws enacted by the legislative body
- Decrees, Orders, Proclamation, Letters, CA,
BP, RA
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2. PROFESSIONAL REGULATIONS
COMMISSION (PRC)
To have general supervision and regulation of all
professions requiring examinations which includes
the practice of medicine.
Composition:
Commissioner
Two Associate Commissioner
Functions:
Exercise general administrative, executive and
policy-making functions for the whole agency.
3. BOARD OF MEDICINE
Its primary duties are to give examinations for the
registration of physicians and supervision, control
and regulation of the practice of medicine.
ADMISSION
MEDICINE
TO
THE
PRACTICE
OF
Prerequisites:
Composition:
1. Minimum age requirement
- at least 21 years of age
Qualifications:
-
Natural-born citizen;
Duly registered physician;
In the practice of medicine for at least 10
years;
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3. Examination Requirements
- must have passed the corresponding Board
Examination
- Preliminary Examination
- -At least 19 years of age;
- -Of good moral character;
- -Have completed the first two years of the
medical course;
- -Final or Complete Examination
- -Citizen of the Philippines or of any country
who has submitted competent and
conclusive
- Documentary evidence confirmed by the
DFA showing that his countrys existing
laws permit citizens of the Philippines to
practice medicine under the same rules and
regulations governing citizens thereof
(RECIPROCITY RULE).
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE
What is the practice of medicine?
It is a privilege or franchise granted by the State to
any person to perform medical acts upon
compliance with law, that is, the Medical Act of
1959 as amended which has been promulgated by
the State in the exercise of police power to protect
its citizenry from unqualified practitioners of
medicine.
It is diagnosing and applying and the usage of
medicine and drugs for curing, mitigating, or
relieving bodily disease or conditions.
ACTS CONSTITUTING THE PRACTICE OF
MEDICINE (pursuant to Sec.10, Art. III of the
Medical Act of 1959 as amended):
Scope of Examination:
Preliminary - Anatomy and Histology
Physiology
Biochemistry
Microbiology and Parasitology
Final - Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Pathology
Medicine
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Pediatrics and Nutrition
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Penalties
1.
2.
3.
4.
Exemptions:
By PROVISIONS OF LAW, the following are not
considered to constitute practice of medicine
(Sec.11, Art. III, Medical Act of 1959 as amended):
management
INCIDENTAL RIGHTS
- right of way while responding to emergency
- right of exemption from execution of
instruments and
- Library to hold certain public/private offices
to perform certain services to compensation
right to membership in medical societies
to determine appropriate
procedures
to avail of hospital services
RIGHTS OF PATIENTS
Cannot
be subjected to
licensure
examinations as required by law;
Practice of medicine may be employed and
controlled by unqualified physicians;
Professional relationship between the patient
and the physician will be impaired;
Deprivation of free choice of physicians.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Basis of Consent
1. The physician-patient relationship
fiduciary in nature.
2. Patients right to self-determination.
3. Contractual relationship.
PHYSICIAN
He is a person who after completing his secondary
education follows a prescribed course of medicine
at a recognized university or medical school, at the
successful completion of which, is legally licensed
to practice medicine by the responsible authorities
and is capable of undertaking the prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment of human illness by the
exercising independent judgment and without
supervision. (WHO)
is
Purposes
1. To
protect
the
patient
from
unnecessary/unwarranted procedure applied
to him without knowledge
2. To protect the physician from any
consequences for failure to comply with
legal requirements
RIGHTS OF PHYSICIAN
INHERENT RIGHTS
- to choose patients (except in emergency
cases)
- to limit practice of medicine
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MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
Failure of a physician to properly perform the duty
which devolves upon him in his professional
relation to his patient which results to injury.
It may be defined as bad or unskillful practice of
medicine resulting to injury of the patient or failure
on the part of the physician to exercise the degree of
care, skill and diligence, as to treatment in a manner
contrary to accepted standards of medicine resulting
to injury to the patient.
Imputed
Negligence/Command
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