Selected medicolegal issues for the dermatologist

It is increasingly difficult to practice medicine without a clear understanding of legal issues. Although in the past, physicians found a paucity of medicolegal materials, the opposite is now the rule. Multiple excellent medicolegal textbooks are available, and most new textbooks and or major journals now include medicolegal chapters or columns. The problem may now be that physicians have been so exposed to medicolegal issues that they are either overwhelmed by the amount of information that must be understood or risk becoming complacent or overconfident about their understanding of the basic issues they need to understand. This article revisits the most basic medicolegal concepts of establishing and terminating the physician-patient relationship, obtaining informed consent/refusal, medical malpractice, and medical record keeping, providing pearls and checklists to assist the practitioner. In addition, special attention is given to the use of Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs for unapproved purposes and to the patient with human immunodeficiency virus, because these areas are receiving increasing legal attention.