One way to increase cooperation between the professions of law and medicine is to teach law in medical schools in a way that emphasizes methods of approaching problems, and seeks to dispel the major myths that doctors have about the law. In this Article, Professor George Annas presents an outline of a core course in legal medicine “tailor-made” for inclusion in the medical (and, with appropriate modifications, dental) school curriculum.

This Article by Professor Arnold J. Rosoff concerns the passage of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, the problems which have been experienced thus far in its implementation, and the current proposals for amendment of the Act in order to make it more viable.

This Article examines the legal status of hospital committee proceedings and reports, focusing on how they may be used in a medicolegal context. Specific topics dealt with include the hospital medical staff in legal perspective, the concept of institutional responsibility, liability considerations arising from committee work, and the discovery and admissibility of committee records in litigation cases. The author concludes that the danger of committee members facing liability for their activities is slight and that the fear that these reports and proceedings may be subject to discovery or be admissible into evidence in subsequent litigation is remote because candid and conscientious evaluations of clinical practices within every institution are essential and, therefore, public policy must encourage such evaluations by maintaining the confidentiality of committee activities.

One of the most readily apparent weaknesses in the field of medicolegal studies has been our inability to develop consistent and lexicographically defensible descriptive titles for the field itself. In this Article, Professor William J. Curran offers an analysis of the historical roots of the terminology which has been applied in this field over the years, an examination of current confused usage, and a proposal for reform.

Today, it is readily apparent that the legal and moral aspects of medical practice are becoming increasingly complex. This is not to say that the practitioners of, say, twenty years ago did not face complex legal and ethical questions. Certainly they did. But for them, such questions were not raised in such diverse ways as they are today.

Certificate of Need legislation is one of several regulatory programs designed to control the allocation of health care delivery resources. This paper examines the Massachusetts experience with Certificate of Need, focusing on two major administrative law controversies—the extent of the regulatory agency's power to participate actively in the planning process, and the scope of review of agency decisions permitted under a non-judicial appeals mechanism. The study concludes that any Certificate of Need program may be strengthened by accurately defining the roles of the participants and by providing for safeguards within the system itself.

Ira M. Shepard, J.D. herein analyzes the legislative history and the substantive provisions of the 1974 Health Care Institution Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. The Amendments bring private, non-profit health care institutions and their employees under the coverage of the NLRA, the goal of Congress being to reach a successful compromise of the public's right to receive uninterrupted health care; the health care institution's obligation to provide these services to the fullest extent possible; and the right of health care employees to have the same voice in the determination of their wages, hours, and working conditions accorded other workers under the NLRA.

This Article presents a summary analysis of the administrative and statutory bases for the documented, prevalent mismanagement of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) cases by a majority of local death investigation agencies in the United States. Herein, Alan P. Cleveland, J.D. advances the theory that the unsatisfactory handling of cases of SIDS by the medicolegal community is the inevitable outgrowth of state laws that expressly require investigative agencies to approach a sudden, unexplained death from the direction of determining first whether or not a criminal act has occurred. In so doing, most statutorily mandated autopsy procedures are socially counterproductive since, in ignoring an acute medical need for supportive family counselling, they often constitute an insuperable obstacle to the effective management of SIDS as a public health problem. The author recommends that a requisite first step in implementing an SIDS management program at the state level is to insulate surviving family members from criminal investigative procedures by appropriate amendment of state laws governing local death investigation systems.

Major advances in prenatal genetic diagnosis have occurred in the past few years which pose difficult challenges to the law. This paper raises questions relative to family history taking, genetic counseling, carrier detection, amniocentesis, and prenatal genetic studies, and also raises questions with respect to the rights and responsibilities of the patient, the fetus, the physician, and society in light of such modern advances. Law reform often occurs only after prior harm to an individual, family or group. Perception and delineation of the most important issues in this area should serve to stimulate the development of medicolegal guidelines and corrective legislation prior to the occurrence of a genetic tragedy.

The relationship between the legal and medical professions is improving, but many problems remain. There has been and continues to be substantial growth in medicolegal organizations of various kinds. Better medicolegal investigative methods are being developed, and medicolegal teaching programs are on the increase. The two professions have worked together successfully on such problems as human heart transplantation and drug abuse. On the other hand, several problem areas continue to cause difficulty and friction, including medical experimentation on humans, the legal definition of death, abortion, euthanasia, and medical malpractice. The author calls on the existing medicolegal organizations to apply their expertise and influence to define and resolve these problems.