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edited by Richard E. Anderson, 300 pp, $59.50, ISBN 1-588-29-389-0, Totowa, NJ, Humana Press, 2005.

JAMA. 2005;293:1393.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

When physician-attorney Hubert Winston Smith published a six-part series called "Legal Responsibility for Medical Malpractice" in JAMA 63 years ago, he devoted the first article to the development of the common law, one article each to the four elements (duty to the patient, negligence, proximate cause, and damages) that must be proven in order to demonstrate malpractice, and one to the system for dealing with malpractice. He discussed numerous legal precedents at length, but not insurance. The standard of care being what an ordinary, competent physician would do under the circumstances, Smith did not dwell on how to avoid liability.

Compare the contents of the book under review. While the subject is malpractice, this is not a book about the law as such. The elements of proving malpractice are covered on one page. Specific legal cases are barely mentioned (though legal rules are discussed). What we find instead are discussions . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Jay A. Gold, MD, JD, MPH, Reviewer
MetaStar, Inc
Madison, Wis
jgold@metastar.com