Law Commons^™

The Patient-Physician Relationship In An Era Of Scarce Resources: Is There A Duty To Treat?, Maxwell J. Mehlman

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the three major areas of common law that govern the patient-physician relationship: contract law, tort law, and fiduciary law. It explores the definition of the patient-physician relationship within each doctrine and the extent to which physicians must furnish care to patients regardless of resource constraints. After concluding that the common law cannot ensure that individual patients receive access to needed health care services, the Article explores how the law might be changed to achieve this result.