Articles

The Medicolegal Challenges of Chronic Post-Surgical Pain

Surgical intervention may be required in the treatment of many illnesses and injuries. While many patients recover completely and consider surgery extremely beneficial, a significant proportion go on to develop chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) (1-5). Chronic…
Categories : Articles, Pain
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The Medicolegal Implications of Advance Directives in Intensive Care

An advance directive, or living will, is a statement of instructions regarding future treatment options, including the right to refuse treatment, in the case of incapacitating illness which renders the patient unable to make decisions.…
Categories : Articles, Intensive care
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The Medicolegal Challenges of Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts

Although percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is viewed as a less invasive treatment, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is now accepted as a highly effective solution to obstructive disease of the coronary arteries in certain patients.…
Categories : Articles, Cardiac Surgery
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Outcomes after Foot and Ankle Injuries and their Medicolegal Implications

Ankle injuries are extremely frequent: sprains account for around 5% of all Emergency Department visits in the UK each year, while ankle fractures are one of the commonest fractures to require surgical intervention. Complications arising…
Categories : Articles, Trauma and orthopaedics
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Pain and malingering from a medicolegal perspective

There are several definitions of malingering, but in essence, it is the deliberate and fraudulent feigning or exaggeration of the symptoms of illness or injury for an external benefit. In this last respect, it differs…
Categories : Articles, Pain
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The Medicolegal Challenges of Managing Joint Pain

Joint pain may be either acute or chronic. Acute joint pain arises from infection, trauma, autoimmune and inflammatory processes. Without prompt diagnosis and appropriate management, there is a high risk of long-term consequences, including disability.…
Categories : Articles, Pain
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The medicolegal challenges of aortic valve disease: Conservative treatment or aortic valve replacement?

Degeneration of the valves of the heart is very common, particularly in older patients. Aortic stenosis (AS), which is caused by calcification of a normal tricuspid valve or progressive stenosis of a congenitally bicuspid valve,…
Categories : Articles, Cardiac Surgery
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The clinical management of diabetic foot and its medicolegal implications

Diabetes affects millions of people worldwide and its prevalence is increasing (1). Insulin treatment has overcome the acute problems of ketoacidosis and infection often associated with the disease, but vascular and neurological complications, including diabetic…
Categories : Articles, Vascular Surgery
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The role of contributory negligence in defending a claim

In order to succeed, a claim for medical negligence must prove that the practitioner involved had a duty of care to their patient, this duty was breached and that the breach resulted in harm to…
Categories : Articles, Defence
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A Medicolegal Perspective on Neuropathic Pain

The sensation of pain evolved to protect the body from actual and potential harm (1, 2). However, in neuropathic pain, which is caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system (1-5), this protective function…
Categories : Articles, Pain
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