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Medical Practice Act
A statute of a US state or jurisdiction that outlines the scope of practice for physicians and the responsibility of the medical board to regulate that practice. The primary responsibility and obligation of a state medical board is to protect the public through proper licensing and regulation of physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals.
Acute Pain
Pain that has a known cause and occurs for a limited time. Acute pain usually responds to treatment with analgesic medications and treatment of the cause of the pain.
Confidentiality
The principle that prohibits physicians from disclosing confidential comments made to them by patients unless required to do so by law. The law may require physicians to violate patient confidentiality if the patient poses a serious threat to his or her own health and the well-being or that of others.
Subrogation
A process by which a third party is put in the place of a creditor so that the rights and securities of the creditor pass to that third person.
Duty of Care
Once a doctor or health care professional agrees to diagnose or treat a patient, he or she has assumed a duty of care toward that patient.
Spinal cord abscess
Spinal cord abscess is a disorder characterized by inflammation and a collection of infected material (pus) around the spinal cord.
Economic damages
Funds to compensate a plaintiff for the monetary costs of an injury, such as medical bills or loss of income.
Assumption of risk
In the law of negligence, as a defense, a defendant's allegation that the injured plaintiff recognized the danger of the plaintiff's course of action but, nonetheless, willingly chose to risk such danger.
Discovery
The pre-trial process, such as a deposition, by which one party discovers the evidence that will be relied upon at trial by the opposing party.
Comparative negligence
The doctrine of comparing degrees of fault among the responsible parties.
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