Importantly, the author explores legal concepts of disclosure (right to know) and informed consent from several jurisdictions and draws on some relevant case law. The book is an invaluable toolkit for medical professionals to avoid being the one to be sued. The book discusses how the courts have determined that established normal professional practice can have inherent defects which can be deemed negligent but also shows why relationships between professionals and patients are changing for the better.
It is a publication that challenges legally outdated methods for arriving at clinical practice guidelines in what is regarded as the norm in healthcare and ethics including the reasons for the unlawful use of randomised controlled clinical trials. The author’s grasp of the subject is unique in that he has considerable personal experience of hyperbaric oxygenation as a patient in recovery, and is a provider of such services and a practicing lawyer. Such matters are declared. This book will be of interest to the public, patients, policy makers, editors, coroners and legal and medical practitioners and will stimulate healthy debate. Without doubt, independent systematic reviews of hyperbaric oxygenation are needed as are measured consideration by policy makers. The author is to be congratulated for tackling such contentious issues in his forthright style and for his advocacy. A view of the subject matters have been sharpened by medical events in the Covid-19 pandemic and the book describes some experience of advocacy during the pandemic. Such matters are topical and controversial.
