Prof Emily Jackson

This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law and LLB in Laws. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course is available to General Course students.

Medical law is a rapidly developing and increasingly important subject. The rationing of expensive new drugs, and the future of the NHS have become central political issues.  New technologies, such as genome editing, egg freezing and face transplants, are invariably accompanied by demands for their regulation. In this course we examine the legal framework within which health services are provided, and we explore some of the difficult legal and ethical dilemmas that arise when determining the limits of medical innovation.

Subjects include resource allocation; public health; malpractice litigation; consent; mental capacity; mental health law; confidentiality; clinical research; the regulation of medicines; organ transplantation; embryo and stem cell research; abortion; assisted conception; preimplantation genetic diagnosis; surrogacy and assisted dying.

10 hours of lectures and 9 hours of classes in the MT. 10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the LT. 1 hour of lectures and 1 hour of classes in the ST.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the MT and 1 essay in the LT.

Jackson, Medical Law: Text, Cases and Materials, 5th edition (Oxford UP, 2019).

Take-home assessment (50%) and take-home assessment (50%).

Two take-home assessments worth 50% each. The first will take place between MT and LT, and the second will take place between LT and ST.