The Australian Medico-Legal Handbook will be provided with PDA software and aims to give JMOs immediate, clear and concise answers to the most frequently asked legal questions arising during hospital training. Doctors carry very little when they are in the ward but are increasingly carrying PDAs, making the accompanying software an ideal content delivery method.

• The handbook and accompanying PDA software is the only one of its kind offered to Australian JMOs.
• Content development is based around the authors' research through ongoing focus groups into the most commonly asked questions by the end user, that is, JMOs in the hospital training environment.
• Law updates and other relevant materials (including guidelines and links to relevant Health Department documents) will be provided on the accompanying Evolve site.
• Written by a proven author team, each an expert in the medico-legal and/or ethical fields.
• Clinical problems will be outlined with cross-referencing to the appropriate sections of the handbook. These questions will be posed in the style and format used by clinicians, for example: 'What if I get sued?' 'What do I do if someone refuses treatment?' 'What deaths do I refer to the Coroner?' 'What if I make a mistake?' 'Who makes decisions about a child's treatment?'

1. How to Use this Handbook
2. Clinical Questions
3. The Legal System, Courts and Procedure
4. Standards of Care
5. Professional Conduct
6. Consent
7. Confidentiality and Privacy
8. Incompetent Patients
9. Children
10. Death and Dying
11. Human Tissue and Organ Donation
12. Mental Health
13. Drugs and Prescribing
14. The Police
15. Medical Records
16. Certificates
17. Employment and other Arrangements for Services

Glossary

Index

By Cameron Stewart, Associate Professor of Law, Macquarie University Honorary Associate Professor of Law, Centre for Values in Ethics, Medicine and the Law, University of Sydney, Legal Practitioner, NSW Supreme Court Barrister and Solicitor, High Court of Australia; Ian Kerridge, Director, Centre for Values and Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney; Staff Haematologist/Bone Marrow Transplant Physician, Westmead Hospital, Australia; and Malcolm Parker, Associate Professor, Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, University of Queensland; Board member of the Australasian Bioethics Association and the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Health Law & Ethics; Member of Queensland Health Ethics Advisory Committee