[Medical responsibility and legal malpractice].
The principle that obliges anyone to answer for his acts, is one of the foundations of our law and ethic systems; so the fault committed by a doctor is punished, penally speaking, by the articles 418 and next of the penal code. These articles specify that a doctor's charge of unintentional blows and wounds or of unintentional homicide rests on the conjunction of three elements: a fault which can be defined as any act which wouldn't have been carried out by any other doctor of the same spéciality who is normally cautious, competent and diligent and placed in identical circumstances, a harm: either the patient's death (homicide) or blows and wounds which can be caused by simple omission, an obvious relationship of cause and effect between the fault and the harm. The absence of a practioner's recording of his free and conscious patient's consent is considered similar to a fault by the doctrine. The same doctrine asserts that going beyond the patient's refusal to receive the suggested cares is considered as the same harm as intentional blows and wounds?
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Université de Liège.
D001530:Belgium; D006708:Homicide / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D008318:Malpractice / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D010344:Patient Advocacy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D010819:Physician's Role; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*