UNLIMITED MEDICAL LIABILITY?

Jessica L Roberts, Leah R Fowler, Paul S Appelbaum

Abstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Emory law journal online, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

2citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

The social justice dilemma of liability allocation in medical damage: a qualitative analysis based on case judgments.Frontiers in public health · 2026
Article
Practical considerations for reinterpretation of individual genetic variants.Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics · 2023
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Jessica L RobertsLeonard H. Childs Chair in Law, Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute, Professor of Law, and Professor of Medicine (by courtesy), University of Houston.

Leah R FowlerLeonard H. Childs Chair in Law, Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute, Professor of Law, and Professor of Medicine (by courtesy), University of Houston.

Paul S AppelbaumElizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine & Law, Director of the Center for Law, Ethics & Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University.

Funding

Development of recommendations and policies for genetic variant reclassificationR01HG010365 · NHGRI · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · PI APPELBAUM, PAUL STUART, CHUNG, WENDY K · 2018 to 2021

$2.9M

NHGRI NIH HHS R01 HG010365

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Pursuant to the standard account of the law, physicians only owe special legal duties within the confines of an established treatment relationship. However, this well- accepted adage of black letter medical malpractice law does not, in fact, reflect reality. Indeed, the physician-patient relationship is rarely well-defined, and-perhaps more troublingly-courts have been willing to find liability outside of its boundaries. This Essay scrutinizes the notion that doctors have heightened legal obligations solely to their current patients. It concludes that physicians may be liable for far more conduct than the conventional account implies. It ends by suggesting ways to cabin this potentially unlimited liability.

Identifiers

PMID37655295

PMCPMC10468648

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceTDM

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.