The Fundamentals of Health Law

A series of Perspective articles that covers the health laws that have the greatest effects on the practice of medicine. The goal of this series is to explain certain basic principles and regulatory fundamentals of health law. (The articles on this page appear in order of publication, beginning with the most central principles of health law and building from there.)

Editorial Jul 28, 2022 Fundamentals of Health Law — A New Perspective Series
E.C. Fuse Brown and Others N Engl J Med 2022; 387:372-373
The editors announce a new series of Perspective articles focusing on the multifaceted relationship between U.S. medicine and the law and on the myriad roles health law plays in patients’ lives and in the delivery of care.
Perspective Jul 28, 2022 The History of Health Law in the United States
E.C. Fuse Brown and A.S. Kesselheim N Engl J Med 2022; 387:289-292
Health law shapes the landscape of health care delivery in powerful ways. The history of health law can be broken into four eras, each with its own prevailing ethos.

Perspective Aug 25, 2022 The Physician–Patient Relationship
A.R. Derse N Engl J Med 2022; 387:669-672
Today the physician–patient relationship may be more fraught than ever, but physicians still owe patients both long-standing and more recently added legal duties.