Alternatives to suing could help open communication between injured patients and clinicians.

The gross negligence of the physicians who cared for Steve Biko, an apartheid-era South African political activist who died of injuries inflicted while in police custody, illustrates how dual loyalty—toward patients and, in this case, the state—makes performance of professional duties difficult.

The Anesthesiology Quality Institute contributes both to local quality improvement in the practice of anesthesiology through data collection and establishment of benchmarks and to patient safety in partnership with the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation.

The case of Johnson v Kokemoor illuminates the conflict between patients’ right to informed consent and clinicians’ need to learn through practice, a conflict that possibly could be resolved through greater transparency about clinicians’ experience or experience-dependent medical fees.

The ambiguity about and lack of uniformity in informed consent practices does not lend itself to the kind of shield from malpractice liability that exists in some more concrete, standardizable aspects of medical practice.

A new Virginia law governing collaborations between nurse practitioners and doctors leaves unresolved key legal issues in team-based care, including those pertaining to medical malpractice and liability and anticompetitive practices.

Using evidence-based medical guidelines in courts will require confronting legal professionals' lack of training in assessing scientific evidence, the limitations of available evidence, and fundamental distinctions between the meaning of evidence in medicine and law.

Requirements for informed consent are relatively vague and the exceptions are few, so it is in the physician’s best interest to inform patients about proposed treatment options, ascertain that they understand their choices, and secure their consent.

State medical boards, tend to follow social policy as expressed in U.S. law, which designates moral turpitude outside the clinic as a cause for restricting professional licenses.

Health courts using a "no-fault" model have been proposed as a less expensive and more time-effective alternative to medical malpractice litigation, but their legality and the fairness of the verdicts they produce remains to be seen.