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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2021
When patients behave badly: Consent, breach of the duty of care and the law.
- Anne-Maree Kelly, Tina Cockburn, and Bill Madden.
- Joseph Epstein Centre for Emergency Medicine Research, Sunshine Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
- Emerg Med Australas. 2021 Feb 1; 33 (1): 172-174.
AbstractPatients who are abusive or aggressive in ED raise special clinical and legal challenges. These include what steps clinicians should take to exclude serious illness/injury as the cause of the behaviour and when investigations or treatments can be imposed on these patients without their consent. Using a case illustration, this paper discusses legal issues which arise in this context, including how the standard of care owed by clinicians is determined and what may constitute a breach of duty; such patients' right to consent to (or decline) tests and treatment; and when clinicians may lawfully act without consent and/or control the patient's behaviour.© 2020 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.
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