Drs Bramhall and Bawa-Garba and the rightful domain of the criminal law.
Ost S. Drs Bramhall and Bawa-Garba and the rightful domain of the criminal law. J Med Ethics. 2019;45(3):151-155. doi:10.1136/medethics-2018-105135.
Labeling medical negligence as a criminal act can affect transparency and disclosure behaviors across professional health care communities. This commentary discusses two high-profile cases from the United Kingdom to explore the appropriateness of assigning criminality in either instance—one centered on human error that contributed to the death of a child and the other involved negligent actions but resulted in no permanent patient harm.