Law Commons^™

A Medical Malpractice Model For Developing Countries?, Nathan Cortez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article, written for the symposium "Reforming Medical Liability: Global Perspectives," evaluates the unique plight of developing countries in crafting medical liability regimes. Many developing countries struggle to maintain workable systems for adjudicating physician negligence. This is due to a variety of factors, such as widespread poverty, more pressing public health priorities that demand attention, a scarcity of physicians, immature health care systems, large informal health sectors, regulatory deficits, and weak civil societies, among others. Patients in these countries are also less able than their counterparts in well-developed countries to evaluate and challenge the care they receive and thus serve …