| Abstract [eng] |
One of the most topical issues of the contemporary civil law is application of professional civil liability to physicians: evaluation of harm done to the patient, selection of the most appropriate causation theory and determination of causation, provability of fault, and, most important, evaluation of illegality of the physician’s actions. In practice, when applying civil liability to the physicians, first of all, questions, whether the actions of the physician were legitimate or not, how to determine the starting point and the criterion for such determination, arise. Supposedly, criteria for evaluation of the physician’s actions are relevant not only to determination of physician’s civil liability a posteriori, but are a priori of great importance to the physicians themselves in their everyday professional life. It is important to the patient as well what duties a physician has to the patient, to what extent they must be exercised and, when exercised, how they should be evaluated. It is analyzed in the Master’s paper the evaluation of illegality of the physician’s actions when applying civil liability, philosophical nature of the main physician’s duties to the patient, historical development, and content. The nature and historical development of the physician’s duties (to respect person’s autonomy, to inform the patient and receive an informative consent for treatment, beneficence duty and patient’s confidentiality requirement) are analyzed invoking main historical sources of medicine law of Western civilization: archaic (not renewed) Hypocrite’s oath, renewed Hypocrite’s oath as of 1997, because in the very Hypocrite’s oath rudiments of physician’s duties to the patient, which are recognized in the modern bioethics and medical legal science, are found. Respectively, the content and extent of the mentioned duties are valuated taking into consideration legal regulation of the Republic of Lithuania, United States of America and United Kingdom; legal acts, professional ethics codes of physicians, case law and doctrine are under analysis. When analyzing the main physician’s duties to the patient, peculiarities of national legal regulation on physician’s duties and problematic aspects of regulation are presented. Referring to the evaluation of illegality of physician’s actions, efficiency and relevance of tests of “intelligent physician” (aka Bolam test), “intelligent patient” and “individual patient” are examined. |
