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.
Industry sponsorship of continuing medical education is controversial. A standard to adhere to is that before accepting any industry-sponsored education or incentive, a physician should form an independent evaluation of the product.
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.