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The Law Of Medical Misadventure In Japan, Robert B. Leflar
The Law Of Medical Misadventure In Japan, Robert B. Leflar
Robert B Leflar
This paper offers a comprehensive overview of Japanese law and practice relating to iatrogenic (medically-caused) injury, with comparisons to other nations’ medical law systems. The paper addresses criminal sanctions for Japanese physicians’ negligent and illegal acts; civil law principles of substantive law and related issues of procedure, practice, and liability insurance; and administrative measures including health ministry programs aimed at expanding and improving the quality of peer review within Japanese medicine, and a recently implemented no-fault compensation system for birth-related injuries. Among the paper’s findings are these. Criminal and civil actions increased rapidly after highly publicized medical error events at …
Medical Error As Reportable Event, As Tort, As Crime: A Transpacific Comparison, Robert B. Leflar, Futoshi Iwata
Medical Error As Reportable Event, As Tort, As Crime: A Transpacific Comparison, Robert B. Leflar, Futoshi Iwata
Robert B Leflar
All nations seek to reduce the human toll from medical error, but variations in legal and institutional structures guide those efforts into different trajectories. This article compares legal and institutional responses to patient safety problems in the United States and Japan, addressing developments in civil malpractice law (including discoverability of internal hospital documents), administrative practice (including medical accident reporting systems), and - of particular significance in Japan - criminal law. In the U.S., battles over rules of malpractice litigation are fierce; tort law occupies center stage. The hospital accreditation process plays a critical role in medical quality control, and peer …