Language barriers that affect medical care may have legal consequences. The areas of legal concern for doctors are medical malpractice, informed consent, duty to warn, and patients' privacy rights.
I’m sorry laws, enacted in the majority of states, encourage physicians to apologize for unexpected outcomes and errors by making such apologies inadmissible in civil court to prove liability.
Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.
The statute for limitations clock on claims of medical malpractice starts ticking when the patient discovers the malpractice, not when the malpractice occurred, and physicians may be held accountable for their misinterpretation of any test results.
Several recent court cases illustrate how some states are attempting to mandate physician reporting of all underage sexual activity as instances of child abuse.
Physicians should be diligent in taking a medical history, adhering to the standard of care and documenting their actions during every patient encounter, particularly when there is no established patient-physician relationship.