A Basic Guide to Medicolegal Reference Sources

“Support a lawyer. go to med school” The above message on the car bumper stickers of members of the medical profession reflects their reaction to the current escalation of malpractice suits filed by attorneys against doctors and hospitals. The impact of these suits against medical personnel and institutions is not limited to patients, doctors and lawyers; the ripple‐effect reaches the entire community, because the rising incidence of malpractice suits tends to increase the cost of malpractice insurance and ultimately the total cost of health care to all members of society. Malpractice is but a small, though highly visible, part of a broader spectrum of interaction between medicine and law. “The complexities of modern society are causing law and medicine to interface with increasing frequency to the extent that contact with the legal process has become an inescapable aspect of the physician's life.” In recognition of this increasing frequency of contacts between medicine and law, a correspondingly increasing number of medicolegal reference works have been published, as exemplified by the selective list which follows this introduction. These should be of direct interest to doctors and members of allied health professions, to attorneys and paralegals and, indirectly, to all who deal with medical personnel and institutions. Traditionally, attorneys, particularly members of the trial bar, have demonstrated a continuing interest in medical literature. For example, the Merck Manual and Goldstein's Medical Trial Technique are familiar to most trial lawyers. They are expected to be well acquainted with anatomy charts, texts on internal medicine, eye, ear, nose and throat, orthopedics, obstetrics, and pediatrics, to name but a few generic medical works of interest to trial lawyers. It should be noted that the lawyer's interest in medical literature is not necessarily motivated by a desire to harass doctors, nurses and hospitals. Attorneys are bound by their Code of Professional Responsibility to represent their clients competently and zealously. In discharging this ethical obligation, the attorney frequently calls upon a physician to testify as an expert witness concerning the cause of a personal injury or death. Consequently, the attorney should be knowledgeable in medical theory and terminology. Furthermore, in pursuit of interdisciplinary competence, a significant number of individuals in the United States have earned both the medical degree and the law degree and appropriate licenses to practice, e.g., Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D., Director, Pittsburgh Institute of Legal Medicine, Duquesne Law School, member, Faculty of the Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Dentistry, Coroner, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.