Medical law

<p>So i'm going to be a freshman in college this fall, and i will most likely study journalism, which i think is a good major for law school, plus i enjoy it very much.</p>

<p>im interested in going into medical law. i originally wanted to be a doctor, but i have found that i am terribnle with mat h and science, and am much more verbally oriented.</p>

<p>so anyway, about medical law...can people just tell me about it? i have no idea about it at all...and i'd just liket o learn a lot about it. what would i do as a medical attorney and such...</p>

<p>thanks</p>

<p>Bump S'il Vous Plait (pleaseeeeeeeeeeee)</p>

<p>I don't really think of "medical law" as a specialty. There are attorneys who file medical malpractice actions, and other attorneys who defend against those actions. (Most of those who represent plaintiffs in medical malpractice actions handle them in addition to other personal injury actions.) There are attorneys work in-house at hospitals, or more commonly, for corporations that operate hospitals.</p>

<p>I have not ever heard of "medical law," and I have practiced as a health care attorney for 20 years. Perhaps that is what you meant? Health care law involves general representation of hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers including drafting and negotiating contracts, transactional work (mergers, acquisitions, establishment of joint venture entities between hospitals and physicians, etc.), regulatory advice, and operational advice (policies, procedures).</p>

<p>Also, you might want to look at a professional organization's website for health lawyers to get more of a feel for the specialty: <a href="http://www.healthlawyers.org/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.healthlawyers.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Thanks, blackeyedsusan. I think health care law is what I meant. I had no idea medical law wasn't actually the name of a specialty! Representing hospitals, physicians, other health care providers is exactly what I had in mind...whether it be doing insurance contracts for malpractice insurance and such. Thanks for the website. I'll browse it more when I get the chance.</p>

<p>There are other elements of "health law" that crop up in some fields - the relation between health and constitutional law (discrimination, right to health care, privacy); administrative law (like FDA approval for drugs, devices, etc); and government (heard about Medicare Part D?).</p>