The physician-patient privilege: friend or foe?
The physician-patient privilege that has been enacted in most states has usually been seen as having the benign, even salutary, effect of protecting confidences that patients have entrusted to their physicians in the course of obtaining medical care and treatment. However, case decisions in one state have turned the privilege into a sword that plaintiffs can use to interfere with physicians' and hospitals' defense of cases against them by denying their counsel access to key defense witnesses. This development could occur in many other states that have taken a similar general approach in analyzing the privilege.
Arnstein & Lehr, Chicago, IL.
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D003219:Confidentiality / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D015285:Hospital-Patient Relations; D007087:Illinois; D008318:Malpractice / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D014481:United States