This event is co-organized by the Centre for Medical Ethics & Law, the School of Public Health and the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit of the University of Hong Kong.

Video:
Click here

Abstract:
Litigation holds many fears for clinical professionals.  Many believe that they should be given immunity.  Is the current fault based adversarial system of litigation the fairest system for both physicians and patients?  Should the public interest in learning from mishaps have a place, or even priority?  This talk addresses the disadvantages of litigation, and its benefits, and will look at some alternatives.

Speaker:
Professor James Badenoch, Q.C., Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong

Professor James Badenoch, Q.C., is an eminent Queen’s Counsel who has specialized for over 35 years in clinical negligence, medical law, and professional discipline. He has appeared in a succession of major cases in the UK Supreme Court, the House of Lords, the Privy Council, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, the GMC and the GDC as well as the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and the Hong Kong High Court. Most famously, he was the leading counsel in the landmark case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11, in which he successfully persuaded the UK Supreme Court to adopt a modern formulation of doctors’ duties to their patients as regards the provision of information and the taking of consent, thereby overturning more than half a century of precedent established by the former House of Lords in the case of Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582 and  Sidaway v Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital [1985] AC 871.