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The Physician's Right to Due Process in Public and Private Hospitals: Is There a Difference?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Arthur F. Southwick
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Extract

This article will discuss the rights of a licensed physician to acquire and retain a hospital medical staff appointment. The focus of the discussion will be the relationship between the independent fee-for-service private practitioner and the community general hospital. The relationship of the organized medical staff to both the hospital and the individual doctor will also be clarified. The hospital involved this discussion may be owned by a governmental unit and hence identified as a “public hospital,” but more likely it will be aprivate, non-profit charitable corporation and will be referred to as a “private” hospital. Specifically, this article will explore the differences, if any, between a physician's rights vis-a-vis the public hospital and his or her rights when a private hospital is involved.

Excluded from this analysis are situations where the doctor is an employee of a hospital or health care institution. Also excluded are cases involving hospitals which limit their service to particular patients (e.g., the mentally ill or children), and university-owned teaching hospitals that impose a faculty appointment in the medical school as a pre-requisite to staff privileges.

Type
Article
Information
Medicolegal News , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , February 1981 , pp. 4 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1981

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References

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