Maehle, Andreas-Holger (2015) 'Preserving confidentiality or obstructing justice? Historical perspectives on a medical privilege in court.', Journal of medical law and ethics., 3 (1-2). pp. 91-108.
Abstract
An important problem for medical confidentiality in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the question if doctors could be required to give evidence in court about their patients’ condition. On the one hand, knowledge that personal information might be divulged in open court might prevent patients from consulting a doctor in sensitive illnesses, to the detriment of their health as well as of public health. On the other hand, valuable evidence might be lost through exclusions of medical testimony, perhaps even leading to errors of justice. This paper compares the different approaches that have been taken to this problem in Britain, the USA, and Germany, and highlights key arguments, cases, and regulations that have shaped the issue of a medical privilege in court. It shows that the origins of the different routes taken – from rejection of a medical privilege to its inclusion in codes of civil and criminal procedure – lay in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Moreover, it suggests that the treatment of confidentiality in court reflected the power relations between the legal and medical professions.
Item Type: | Article |
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Keywords: | Medical confidentiality, Privacy, Medical evidence, Medical privilege, USA, Britain, Germany |
Full text: | Publisher-imposed embargo (AM) Accepted Manuscript File format - PDF (Copyright agreement prohibits open access to the full-text) (242Kb) |
Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Download PDF (286Kb) |
Status: | Peer-reviewed |
Publisher Web site: | http://www.uitgeverijparis.nl/tijdschriften/tijdschrift/2/Journal-of-Medical-Law-and-Ethics-JMLE#archief |
Date accepted: | 12 March 2015 |
Date deposited: | 30 April 2015 |
Date of first online publication: | 01 August 2015 |
Date first made open access: | No date available |
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