SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Traditional legal education and the Socratic method it utilises are by and large successful at training lawyers to think, reason and analyse. The cultivation of lawyers' intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, however, has been, at best, neglected by the profession. All lawyers, like all human beings, are emotional. Emotions affect who they are and how they practise law, whether or not they are conscious of them. As emotions cannot be removed from the practice of law, it is essential that lawyers learn to understand and manage their emotions, as well as learn to be attuned to their clients' emotional lives. Ignorance of concepts such as countertransference, denial and unconscious bias adversely impact the lawyer-client relationship. Lawyers who understand basic psychological principles and behaviours, who are aware of their own psychological makeup, understand their cultural perspective and recognise and credit their clients' differences, will enhance their effectiveness as counsellors. The client whose lawyer has these competencies will enjoy a therapeutically superior counselling or representational experience. The neglect of either the lawyer's or the client's emotional life threatens to sabotage the lawyer's ability, and thus professional responsibility, to render competent and impartial legal advice. Through drawing parallels to the training and practice in other counselling disciplines and relationships, this article argues that psychological-mindedness and multicultural competence are essential elements of ethically responsible legal representation.
The purpose of this survey was to define attitudes and opinions of two types of physicians, medical students and lawyers in the area of euthanasia and related issues and problems. A questionnaire was used as the source of data. There were four groups of test persons: oncologists, home care physicians (family doctors), third-year medical students and lawyers. The questionnaire included 22 questions, 4 of which concerned general characteristics of tested persons (including religious belief), while 18 referred to the problems of euthanasia. The total number of tested persons was 123, 55 men and 68 women with a median age of 38 +/- 11 years ( +/- SD). There were 30 test persons in the group of oncologists, 31 in the group of family doctors, 31 in the group of third-year students, and 31 in the group of lawyers. Between 97% and 100% of individuals gave scored responses to most items. More than half of the individuals (57%) were against euthanasia, and 61% are against the legalization of euthanasia. The views of doctors and medical students were similar (2/3 against) and significantly different from the view of lawyers (2/3 for, P < 0.01). The legalization of euthanasia is favored by 61% of lawyers, in contrast to 43%, 30% and 23% of oncologists, family doctors and medical students, respectively. Overall, 31% sais they would apply euthanasia if they were asked for it, and 36% that would if it had been legalized. Lawyers are twice as willing to perform euthanasia as students or physicians. The least ready to apply euthanasia are physicians working as oncologists (only 1 in 5). Compared with oncologists, one-third of home-care physicians would perform euthanasia anyway, whether legalized or not. Most of the test persons were of the opinion that euthanasia should be performed in the case of children born with a severe anomaly. None of the tested groups considered invalidity or being a burden to the family important reasons for the termination of somebody's life. Approximately 40% of responders believed that the decision for euthanasia should be made by the patient alone. Only lawyers were of the opinion that the misuse of euthanasia could be controlled. Our study shows that it is probably more important to determine factors associated with behavior pertaining to euthanasia in physicians working closely with suffering patients. Reducing suffering and launching a hospice movement and palliative care services might be the most appropriate way to deal with the problem of euthanasia.
A lawyer experienced in contract aspects of dental law explores the differences between the ways dentists and lawyers are trained to think about business problems and opportunities. Lawyers are trained to analyze situations to look for alternatives and apply the law to the facts of the case. It is the nature of the law not to have scientifically justified general approaches (what dentists might call parameters or best practice rules). For the lawyer, multiple sources of law, legislative, judicial and regulatory, coupled with the details of a case, provide the framework for decision-making. This can place a premium on finding a lawyer familiar with the field of law in question. Lawyers provide a valuable service in negotiating, mediating, and otherwise finding alternatives to litigation. Communication skills are essential because of the complexity of many legal situations and because the lawyer never decides the correct course of action for a client--the client must do this based on his or her goals and the alternatives presented.
BACKGROUND: With the possible exception of cyclothymia in artists, there is a paucity of data in the literature on the temperament in different professions. METHODS: For this exploratory study, we sought to generate preliminary data on temperaments among psychiatric outpatients, including physicians (n=41), lawyers (n=30), managers and executives (n=35), industrialists (n=48), architects (n=27), journalists (n=34), and a mixed group of artists (n=48). They were compared with age, sex, social class, and affective disorder matched outpatients outside of these professions, drawn from the same clinical settings to serve as our Comparison Group (CG, n=120). We used an interview version of the Akiskal-Mallya criteria for temperaments. We finally used the DSM-III-R obsessive compulsive personality (OC traits). RESULTS: Compared with the CG, lawyers and physicians had high rates of dysthymic temperament and OC traits. Managers, like lawyers and doctors, had high rates on OC traits but were different in being very low on cyclothymic and twice as hyperthymic than the CG was. Industrialists, who, by definition, were self-made, had even higher rates of hyperthymic traits. Both architects and artists seemed to have benefited from being cyclothymic (3-4 times higher than CG's); interestingly, architects had higher levels of OC traits, and artists were less obsessional than the CG was. Overall, among managers/executives and lawyers, 41% met criteria for affective temperaments, whereas the equivalent rate among the remainder was 77%. LIMITATION: Given that this is a chart review of existing clinical records, it was not possible to be blind to the profession of the patients. A mixed group of artists may have obscured differences among artists from different domains of art (e.g., poets vs. performing artists), and the same can be said of physicians (e.g., internists vs. surgeons). A disclaimer would be appropriate: Ours is not a study on eminence in the different professions but on the temperament and personality profiles that distinguish among them. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the foregoing limitations and overlapping attributes in the different professions, they nonetheless emerged as having distinct temperamental and personality profiles. Dysthymic and obsessional attributes are notable in lawyers and physicians. We confirm the role of cyclothymia in artists and architects. The role of the hyperthymic temperament in managers, self-made industrialists, and journalists, to the best of our knowledge, is being reported for the first time. The role of cyclothymic and hyperthymic temperaments appears to be moderated by obsessional traits across the entire professional realm examined. In particular, artists' creative imagination appears "liberated" by low levels of OC traits, whereas among architects, relatively high levels of OC traits seem to contribute to the execution of their work. More tentatively, judging from the overall levels of affective temperaments in the remaining professions, on average, more of the managers/executives than self-made industrialists could be described as "colder" in temperament, and more of the physicians "warmer" than lawyers are. Journalists, as a group, appeared to possess the broadest representation of affective temperaments. The foregoing conclusions must be regarded as tentative, even hypothetical, in need of verification among professionals without major psychiatric disorders. Nonetheless, temperament profiles among psychiatrically ill professionals in the seven professional realms studies can help predict how they relate to their doctors, family members, colleagues, coworkers, and clients/patients. Such knowledge, in turn, can help the therapeutic process.
At the end of the twentieth century, bar scholars and regulators were reexamining two traditionally improper aspects of legal practice. The first was the multidisciplinary practice of law, which would permit lawyers to offer accounting and other professional services to their clients, and allow lawyers to share fees with non-lawyers. The second was the multijurisdictional practice of law, which would permit a lawyer licensed in one jurisdiction to practice law in other jurisdiction in which he was not admitted to the bar. Enron and other corporate scandals deflated the movement towards multidisciplinary practice, but the movement to allow multijurisdictional practice bore some limited, yet important, results. This Article argues that the American Bar Association's new Model Rules 5.5 and 8.5, which broaden the ability of healthcare lawyers to practice outside of the states in which they are admitted, are a suitable accommodation to today's mode of practice, while still preserving the states' ability to regulate lawyers and protect clients.
Pediatricians recognize that social and nonmedical factors influence child health and that there are many government programs and laws designed to provide for children's basic needs. However, gaps in implementation result in denials of services, leading to preventable poor health outcomes. Physician advocacy in these arenas is often limited by lack of knowledge, experience, and resources to intervene. The incorporation of on-site lawyers into the health care team facilitates the provision of crucial legal services to vulnerable families. Although social workers and case managers play a critical role in assessing family stability and finding appropriate resources for families, lawyers are trained to identify violations of rights and to take the appropriate legal steps to hold agencies, landlords, schools, and others accountable on behalf of families. The incorporation of lawyers in the clinical setting originated at an urban academic medical center and is being replicated at >30 sites across the country. Lawyers can help enhance a culture of advocacy in pediatrics by providing direct legal assistance and case consultation for providers, as well as jointly addressing systemic issues affecting children and families. Until laws to promote health and safety are consistently applied and enforced, pediatricians will need lawyers to effectively care for vulnerable children.
The introduction of the Individual Health Care Professions Act (IHCP Act) at the end of 1997 brought a change in various aspects of the disciplinary proceedings. The opinions of those directly involved give an overview of the way in which the disciplinary proceedings functions under the IHCP Act in daily practice, and thus an indication of the contribution made by the disciplinary system to fostering and monitoring high standards of professional practice. Questionnaires were sent to 1300 physicians: 400 general practitioners, 350 internists, 250 gynaecologists and 300 psychiatrists (response 69%, 65%, 60% and 60%, respectively), all 388 disciplinary board members (response 89%) and 43 practicing lawyers (response 65%). Almost all of the disciplinary board members and the practicing lawyers, compared to less than one-third of the physicians, were of the opinion that in their judgement of the complaints the disciplinary boards complied adequately with the concept of good professional practice. A large majority of the disciplinary board members and the practicing lawyers regretted that a complaint could not be declared justified without a sanction being imposed. Most of them were of the opinion that there would be an increase in the number of justified complaints if this possibility were incorporated in the Act. According to the majority of the disciplinary board members and practicing lawyers, the change in the composition of the disciplinary boards had not strengthened the position of the complainant. Most of the respondents were of the opinion that the inclusion of a health professional instead of a legally qualified member was necessary in order to promote consistency in the verdicts concerning professional practice, and thought that a member from the same specialism should always be involved in the judgement of a complaint. A further contribution to the fostering and monitoring of high standards of professional practice could be made by increasing the number of health professional members, adapting the composition of the disciplinary boards to suit the specialism of the accused professional, and introducing the possibility to justify a complaint without imposing a sanction.
The New York State Department of Health Medical Malpractice Insurance Database was used to determine the number and location of malpractice claims filed by residents of New York State against board certified orthopaedic surgeons between 1979 and 1993. The numbers of board certified orthopaedic surgeons, lawyers, law firms doing medical malpractice work, and malpractice claims per capita for each county were calculated. Stepwise linear regression analysis was used to determine whether the per capita rate of malpractice claims was predicted by the population density of board certified orthopaedic surgeons, law firms filing malpractice claims, or total population of lawyers. Three thousand one hundred eighty-two malpractice claims were filed during the period of interest. The per capita rate of malpractice claims did not correlate with the population density of board certified orthopaedic surgeons. The per capita malpractice claim rate, however, was significantly correlated with the population density of law firms filing malpractice claims and with the overall population density of lawyers. Orthopaedic practices located in areas with high concentrations of lawyers involved in medical malpractice litigation appear to have a higher risk of having malpractice claims filed against them than practices located in other areas.
A retrospective study is accomplished in Iceland to study whether mortality and cancer incidence among male physicians (1,210) were lower than those among men of the general population and lawyers (1,032). Overall mortality among lawyers was similar to that of the general male population, however, mortality among the physicians was lower than that of the general population and the lawyers, due to lower mortality for all cancers (SMR 0.73), cerebrovascular diseases (SMR 0.53) and respiratory diseases (SMR 0.54). The physicians had higher mortality for suicide committed by drugs, solid or liquid substances. Cancer was not as frequent among the physicians as among the lawyers, particularly for lung cancer, the SIR was 0.45, but the rates were higher for cancer of the colon and brain among the physicians than among others.