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Acccess to Medical Treatment Act Softens Physician Discipline for CAM

By Michael H. Cohen, Esq.

A state version of the federally proposed "Access to Medical Treatment Act" expands consumer health care choices by softening physician discipline for alternative therapies.

The law in Georgia reads:

(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and except as provided in subsection (c) of this Code section, an individual shall have the right to be treated for any illness or disease which is potentially life threatening or chronically disabling by a person licensed to practice medicine under this article with any experimental or nonconventional medical treatment that such individual desires or the legal representative of such individual authorizes if such person licensed to practice medicine under this article has personally examined such individual and agrees to treat such individual.

(c) A person licensed to practice medicine under this article may provide any medical

treatment to an individual described in subsection (b) of this Code section if:

 

(1) There is no reasonable basis to conclude that the medical treatment itself, when administered as directed, poses an unreasonable and significant risk of danger to such individual; and

 

(2) The person licensed to practice medicine under this article has provided the patient with a written statement and an oral explanation, which the patient has acknowledged by the patient's signature or the signature of the patient's legal representative, that discloses the facts regarding the nature of the treatment, specifically including that the treatment offered is experimental or nonconventional, that the drug or medical device has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for any indication, as well as the material risks generally recognized by reasonably prudent physicians of such treatment's side effects.

 

(d) The treatment of patients in compliance with this Code section by a person licensed to practice medicine under this article shall not by itself constitute unprofessional practice or conduct.

 

For further information about physician discipline, malpractice and other liability issues when giving patients complementary and alternative medical treatments, contact our attorneys today at the Global Vision Law Group, PLC.

Full post as published by Complementary And Alternative Medicine Law Blog on January 22, 2010 (boomark / email).