An examination of erroneous medical practices in circumcision surgery in light of supreme court decisions.

PURPOSE: Global interest in circumcision, one of the oldest and most frequently performed surgical procedures worldwide, continues. There is a significant increase in cases regarding medical malpractice claims in the world and in our country. It is aimed to identify situations that lead to malpractice claims in circumcision surgery, which has question marks regarding its psychological and ethical aspects, to identify situations that are considered errors and professionally risky, and to contribute to eliminating these deficiencies. METHODS: We examined the Supreme Court appeal decisions related to circumcision malpractice cases resolved between 2012 and 2022, using the keyword "circumcision" on the official website of the Republic of Turkiye Supreme Court. RESULTS: We examined 30 Supreme Court decisions that met our criteria. It was determined that the most common lawsuit was filed due to negligence (43.3%), followed by carelessness (20%) and faulty action (20%). CONCLUSION: Physical conditions must be appropriate and healthcare personnel must be adequately trained for circumcision, which is frequently performed especially in pediatric patients and is more frequently subject to malpractice lawsuits than other pediatric operations.

Cancer and Pregnancy in the Post-Roe v. Wade Era: A Comprehensive Review.

Cancer during pregnancy, affecting 1 in 1000 pregnancies, is rising in incidence due to delayed childbearing and improved detection. Common types include breast cancer, melanoma and cervical cancer and Hodgkin's Lymphoma. There are several physiological changes that occur during pregnancy that make its management a challenge to clinicians. Managing it requires multidisciplinary approaches and cautious test interpretation due to overlapping symptoms. To minimize fetal radiation exposure, non-ionizing imaging is preferred, and the interpretation of tumor markers is challenging due to inflammation and pregnancy effects. In terms of treatment, chemotherapy is avoided in the first trimester but may be considered later. Immunotherapy's safety is under investigation, and surgery depends on gestational age and cancer type. Ethical and legal concerns are growing, especially with changes in U.S. abortion laws. Access to abortion for medical reasons is vital for pregnant cancer patients needing urgent treatment. Maternal outcomes may depend on the type of cancer as well as chemotherapy received but, in general, they are similar to the non-pregnant population. Fetal outcomes are usually the same as the general population with treatment exposure from the second trimester onwards. Fertility preservation may be an important component of the treatment discussion depending on the patient's wishes, age and type of treatment. This article addresses the complicated nature of a diagnosis of cancer in pregnancy, touching upon the known medical literature as well as the ethical-legal implications of such a diagnosis, whose importance has increased in the light of recent judicial developments.

Permanent Sterilization in Nulliparous Patients: Is Legislative Anxiety an Indication for Surgery?

AbstractThe Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, first leaked to the public on 2 May 2022 and officially released on 24 June 2022, overturned Roe v. Wade and thereby determined that abortion is no longer a federally protected right under the Constitution. Instead, the decision gives individual states the right to regulate abortion. Since the Dobbs decision first leaked, our institution has received numerous requests for permanent contraception from individuals stating that their motivation to pursue permanent contraception was influenced by the Dobbs decision and concerns about their reproductive autonomy. Discussions with patients seeking permanent contraception since the Supreme Court's leaked decision have led us to ask ourselves, is legislative anxiety an indication for surgery? This article presents a case series consisting of a convenience sample of 17 young, nulliparous individuals who sought out permanent contraception in the six months following the leak of the Dobbs decision. Healthcare professionals often feel discomfort in offering permanent contraception to young and nulliparous individuals. Accordingly, we discuss pertinent legal issues, review relevant ethical considerations, and offer a framework for these discussions intended to empower the consulting healthcare professional to center the bodily autonomy of every patient regardless of age, parity, or indication for permanent contraception.

A national analysis of ED presentations for early pregnancy and complications: Implications for post-Roe America.

BACKGROUND: Most obstetric emergencies are initially managed in the emergency department (ED). The Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade, in June 2022, eliminated constitutional protection of abortion rights, allowing states to swiftly enact laws that can greatly change reproductive medicine. In this post-Roe landscape, the ambiguity and uncertainty being imposed on clinicians regarding the legality of certain interventions may have catastrophic effects. To understand and plan for the changes that will come and attempt to mitigate adverse outcomes, the authors first assessed the current state of pregnancy-related complication care in the ED setting. This study utilized data obtained from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) to evaluate trends in pregnancy-related ED visits from 2016 to 2020 that could be impacted by restricted abortion access and trigger laws. The authors subsequently analyzed the legislative changes and translated the pertinent ones to dispel misunderstandings and provide a framework for appropriate medical practice. METHODS: The retrospective study utilized data from the NHAMCS database from 2016 to 2020, encompassing an estimated total of 4,556,778 pregnancy-related ED visits. NHAMCS is a multi-stage probabilistic sample collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) using an annual survey of EDs in the United States. All data were summarized using descriptive statistics such as proportions and 95% confidence intervals Furthermore, the supreme court decision was analyzed in addition to multiple state laws and legal texts. The findings were summarized and discussed. RESULTS: The majority (79.4%) of all studied visits were for patients between the ages of 18-34 years, capturing those in peak reproductive years. This age group also comprised of the bulk (76.4%) of visits for pathologic pregnancies, including ectopic and molar pregnancies, and 79.8% of visits for a spontaneous miscarriage or threatened miscarriage in early pregnancy. Black patients accounted for 25.7%, white patients 70.1%. Regarding ethnicity, patients were separated into Hispanic and non-Hispanic, with Hispanic patients comprising 27% of all ED visits for included diagnoses between 2016 and 2020. Most visits for complications following an induced abortion occurred in the south (70.8%) and were nearly twice as likely to occur in non-metropolitan areas. Approximately 18% patients presenting with a pathologic pregnancy required admission to the hospital and approximately 50% of those visits for pathologic pregnancies and visits for bleeding in pregnancy had a procedure in the ED (49.8% and 49.5%). There were 111,264 estimated visits in which methotrexate was administered, amounting to approximately 1 in 7 visits for ectopic or molar pregnancy. In this data set, approximately 14,000 miscarriage and early bleeding patients received misoprostol. CONCLUSION: Pregnancy-related ED visits comprise of a significant proportion of emergency care. As it relates to many of the trends previously elucidated on, the true extent of the burden cannot be predicted. It must be emphasized that contrary to popular belief, Dobbs v. Jackson does not prohibit termination of pregnancy in the setting of life-threatening conditions to the mother, including ectopic pregnancy, preeclampsia, and others, but the resultant uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding the constitutional change is leading to an over-compliance of the law, necessarily obstructing reproductive health care. The authors recommend that physicians be mindful of the rapidly-evolving laws in their particular state, and to also practice in accordance with Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Patient safety must be prioritized.

Court Rulings Complicate Decisions for Pregnant Patients.

Recent legislation restricting or eliminating access to abortion in many states intensifies the challenges faced by pregnant women with cancer, according to experts who spoke during the Presidential Select Symposium: Pregnancy and Cancer at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023. The emerging legal landscape also presents medical, moral, and ethical dilemmas for physicians when discussing pregnancy termination as an option in high-risk situations.

Severely Restricting Abortion Threatens Equitable Health Outcomes for People With Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Equitable access to abortion is a critical component of reproductive care. Women with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the United States are disproportionately Black and will be disproportionately affected by abortion bans following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade. We argue that this decision is directly in conflict with the National HIV/AIDS Strategies and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's goals to eliminate perinatal HIV transmission.

Thurgood Marshall, Hero of American Medicine.

One of the heroes in American history, Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) sought legal remedies against racial discrimination in education and health care. As director of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) of NAACP from 1940 to 1961, his success in integrating law schools in Texas led to the first black medical student admitted to a state medical school in the South. Representing doctors and dentists needing a facility to perform surgery, the LDF brought cases before the courts in North Carolina that moved the country toward justice in health care. His ultimate legal victory came in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the decision that declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. In 1964, the LDF under Jack Greenberg, Marshall's successor as director, won Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, a decision that held that hospitals accepting federal funds had to admit black patients. The two decisions laid the judicial foundation for the laws and administrative acts that changed America's racial history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Social Security Act Amendments of 1965 that established Medicare and Medicaid. His achievements came during the hottest period of the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Well past the middle of the twentieth century, black Americans were denied access to the full resources of American medicine, locked in a "separate-but-equal" system woefully inadequate in every respect. In abolishing segregation, Marshall initiated the long overdue remedy of the unjust legacies of slavery and Jim Crow.

Treating Cancer in Pregnant Patients After Roe v Wade Overturned.

This medical news feature discusses the challenges of treating pregnant patients diagnosed with cancer following the reversal of Roe v Wade.

The Implications of the Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe v Wade for Women With Pregnancy-Associated Cancers.

This Viewpoint evaluates factors introduced by the overturn of Roe v Wade that will further complicate the complex, multidisciplinary decision-making involved in treating patients with pregnancy-associated cancer.

United States: Protecting Commercial Speech under the First Amendment.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects commercial speech from government interference. Commercial speech has been defined by the US Supreme Court as speech that proposes a commercial transaction, such as marketing and labeling. Companies that produce products associated with public health harms, such as alcohol, tobacco, and food, thus have a constitutional right to market these products to consumers. This article will examine the evolution of US law related to the protection of commercial speech, often at the expense of public health. It will then identify outstanding questions related to the commercial speech doctrine and the few remaining avenues available in the United States to regulate commercial speech including the use of government speech and addressing deceptive and misleading commercial speech.

The cost of consent: why healthcare providers must be compliant with the Montgomery principles.

The cost of clinical negligence in the UK has continued to rise despite no increase in claims numbers from 2016 to 2019. In the US, medical malpractice claim rates have fallen each year since 2001 and the payout rate has stabilized. In Germany, malpractice claim rates for spinal surgery fell yearly from 2012 to 2017, despite the number of spinal operations increasing. In Australia, public healthcare claim rates were largely static from 2008 to 2013, but private claims rose marginally. The cost of claims rose during the period. UK and Australian trends are therefore out of alignment with other international comparisons. Many of the claims in orthopaedics occur as a result of "failure to warn", i.e. lack of adequately documented and appropriate consent. The UK and USA have similar rates (26% and 24% respectively), but in Germany the rate is 14% and in Australia only 2%. This paper considers the drivers for the increased cost of clinical negligence claims in the UK compared to the USA, Germany and Australia, from a spinal and orthopaedic point of view, with a focus on "failure to warn" and lack of compliance with the principles established in February 2015 in the Supreme Court in the case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board. The article provides a description of the prevailing medicolegal situation in the UK and also calculates, from publicly available data, the cost to the public purse of the failure to comply with the principles established. It shows that compliance with the Montgomery principles would have an immediate and lasting positive impact on the sums paid by NHS Resolution to settle negligence cases in a way that has already been established in the USA. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2020;102-B(5):550-555.

Drafting eligible biotech and immunotherapy claims.

The very recent US Supreme Court and Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit (CAFC) cases have dramatically changed the standard of patent eligibility. Several groundbreaking innovations were thus determined to be patent ineligible. The patent ineligibility would impact on the innovation s of the field of biomarkers, diagnostic methods and personalize cancer immunotherapy. To solve the thorny problem of eligibility, this study retrospectively analyzes all CAFC related cases and presents a flow chart determining patent eligibility based on the courts' decisions. Our analysis indicates the best way to avoid eligible rejection or invalidation is that an invention cannot fall within the categories of natural law, natural phenomenon or abstract idea. Thus, claiming non-natural cDNA, involving a step to grow a transformed cell or adding a means clause in a method claim would be some possible solutions. Moreover, based on the flow chart, even though a claim with substantive limitation but not well-understood, routine or conventional activities would be patent eligible; no one has successfully made the argument in the CAFC so far. We believe that this flow chart can serve as a set of guidelines for determining patent eligibility.

[Federal Supreme Court Decisions in Medical Law (2000-2017) - Overview and Selected Case Reports]. / Bundesgerichtliche Urteile zum Arztrecht (2000­2017) ­ Überblick, ausgewählte Kasuistik und Würdigung.

Federal Supreme Court Decisions in Medical Law (2000-2017) - Overview and Selected Case Reports Abstract. Within the framework of an empirical and casuistic analysis of Federal Court decisions in medical law between 2000 and 2017, the goal was to describe tendencies and patterns of Federal Court decisions in medical law. Among other things, our results show that specialists in internal medicine, psychiatry, gynecology, obstetrics and surgery are more frequently involved in federal court proceedings. By contrast, pathologists, forensic specialists or (diagnostic) radiologists are rarely represented. This may be explained by the fact that the first group consists of more physicians than the other specialties. Furthermore, in the first group, either stronger action may be taken against the will of the patient (e.g. in the context of compulsory medication in psychiatry) or a possible breach of the duty of care is more obvious for the patient or his relatives or at least recognizable even without medical knowledge.

Expansão do poder judicial no Sistema Único de Saúde / Expansion of the judiciary in the Brazilian public health system / Expansión del poder judicial en el Sistema Único de Salud Brazileño

Resumo Este estudo aborda o histórico e a interpretação do Supremo Tribunal Federal em seus julgados ao intervir no Sistema Único de Saúde para torná-lo mais efetivo. Foram feitas pesquisas na base de jurisprudência do Tribunal, destacando-se 14 acórdãos. Observou-se que as bases para intervenção no sistema são suas deficiências e a garantia constitucional dos serviços de saúde, e que as ações se tornaram mais complexas, exigindo fundamentação mais minuciosa e adesão a novas teorias por parte do Supremo. A intervenção abrangeu não apenas o acesso a bens de saúde, mas também outros aspectos relacionados à gestão do Sistema Único de Saúde. No geral, a postura do Supremo Tribunal Federal foi afirmativa, tendo em vista não apenas respaldar a decisão, mas fixar regras para o futuro. Conclui-se que a intervenção judicial no sistema de saúde pública deve não apenas ser mantida, mas intensificada.

Abstract This study addresses the history of and interpretations made by the Brazilian Supreme Court in its judgments when intervening in the Brazilian Public Health System to make it more effective. Research was carried out on the Supreme Court's jurisprudence database and fourteen rulings were highlighted. It was observed that the basis for intervention in the Health System was its very deficiencies and the constitutional guarantee of health services, and that the lawsuits have become more complex, requiring more detailed reasoning and adherence to new theories by the Supreme Court. The intervention covered not only access to health goods, but also other aspects related to the management of the Brazilian Public Health System. In general, the stance of the Supreme Court was affirmative, aiming not only to support the decision, but to establish rules for the future. It is concluded that judicial intervention in public health system should not only be maintained, but intensified.

Resumen Este estudio aborda la historia y la interpretación del Supremo Tribunal Federal, en sus decisiones, al intervenir en el Sistema Único de Salud para tornarlo más efectivo. Se realizaron investigaciones en base a la jurisprudencia del Tribunal, destacándose catorce fallos. Se observó que el fundamento para la intervención en el sistema son sus deficiencias y la garantía constitucional de los servicios de salud, y que las acciones se tornaron más complejas, exigiendo una fundamentación más minuciosa y la adhesión a nuevas teorías por parte del Tribunal Supremo. La intervención abarcó no sólo el acceso a bienes de salud, sino también a otros aspectos relacionados con la gestión del Sistema Único de Salud. En general, la postura del Supremo Tribunal Federal fue afirmativa, teniendo en cuenta no sólo respaldar la decisión, sino también fijar reglas para el futuro. Se concluye que la intervención judicial en el sistema de salud pública no sólo debe mantenerse, sino que también debe intensificarse.

A neo-institutional analysis of the hidden interaction between the Israeli Supreme Court and the Ministry of Finance: the right to healthcare services.

BACKGROUND: Under structural conditions of non-governability, most players in the policy arena in Israel turn to two main channels that have proven effective in promoting the policies they seek: the submission of petitions to the High Court of Justice and making legislative amendments through the Economic Arrangements Law initiated by the Ministry of Finance. Nevertheless, an analysis of the principal trends emerging from the High Court of Justice rulings and legislative amendments through the Economic Arrangements Law indicates that these channels are open to influence, primarily by forces that are essentially neo-liberal. Little is known about the effects of these trends on the right to healthcare services, which in Israel has not been legislated as an independent constitutional law in Basic Laws. METHODS: We use four major legal cases decided by the Supreme Court of Israel in the past 10 years where the Court reviewed new legislative initiatives proposed by the Economic Arrangements Law in the area of healthcare. We utilize an institutional approach in our analysis. RESULTS: A neo-institutional analysis of the legal cases demonstrates that petitions against the Economic Arrangements Law in the area of healthcare services have been denied, even though the Court uses strong rhetoric against that law and the government more generally in addressing issues that concern access to healthcare services and reforms in the healthcare system. This move strengthens the trend toward a neo-liberal public policy and significantly weakens the legal protection of the right to healthcare services. CONCLUSION: In deciding petitions against the Economic Arrangements Law in the area of healthcare, the Supreme Court allows the Ministry of Finance to be a dominant player in the formation of public policy. In doing so, it may be promoting a goal of strengthening its position as a political institution that aspires to increase the public's trust in the judiciary and especially in the Supreme Court itself, in addition to exercising judicial restraint and allowing more leeway to the executive and legislative branches more generally.