Health & Healthcare | By July 27, 2008 | By JC, MD | 1 Comment

Medicine and the Law – Part 5: Abandonment

Continuing on in our series we will now talk about abandonment and terminating the physician-patient relationship. We’ve previously talked about the contract and consent. Then we moved on to medical malpractice and causation. Finally we discussed informed consent. Now we move on to abandonment.

Abandonment is the concept whereby a physician terminates the physician-patient relationship without reasonable notice at a time when the patient still has need of medical attention. This typically is prevented by giving the patient adequate time to find a replacement physician, planning for adequate post-procedure follow up, and giving the patient adequate instruction for care when the patient is not in the presence of the physician. Read more →