The "New Physician Law" is officially implemented: Doctors pay attention to these 10 key contents

The Physicians Law does not set clear quantitative standards for the remuneration of physicians, which is what makes Lawyer Deng Liqiang feel some regrets.

Written by | Tian Dongliang

Source | "Medical Community" public account

Tomorrow (March 1), the Medical Practitioner Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Physician Law) will come into force.

The Physician Law was formulated to protect the legitimate rights and interests of physicians, standardize the practice behavior of physicians, strengthen the construction of the physician team, protect the health of the people, and promote the construction of a healthy China. And officially wrote August 19 of each year into the "Physicians Law" for Chinese Doctors' Day.

What should Chinese doctors pay attention to the upcoming Implementation of the Physician Law? The "medical community" specially invited Deng Liqiang, executive director of the China Health Law Society and deputy director of Beijing Huawei Law Firm, to interpret it, and he was deeply involved in the revision of the Physician Law.

Lawyer Deng Liqiang introduced that in 2019, the Department of Laws and Regulations of the National Health Commission set up a research topic on the revision of the Physician Law, and he was the deputy leader of this topic. Since then, they have organized doctors' forums in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Guizhou, Shenzhen, Heilongjiang and other places to listen to the opinions and suggestions of front-line doctors on the revision of the Physician Law. Some of these recommendations were adopted into the Physicians Act, and some regrettably failed to be included.

Lawyer Deng Liqiang summarized ten issues related to the Physicians Law that deserve attention.

First, the issue of multi-point practice. In the survey, many doctors have asked that once a lawyer is registered, he can practice nationwide, why can't doctors? "On this issue, in the past, I also agreed with the attitude, after research, the administrative organ believes that the doctor is a unit person, not exactly like the legal profession, in this case, should pay relative attention to the hospital management system, if the doctor is flying, is it beneficial to medical safety? Therefore, on this issue, this legislation does not give much attention. ”

Second, physicians can increase the scope of practice and the issue of mutual learning between Chinese and Western medicine. In the second paragraph of Article 14 of the Physician Law, Traditional Chinese medicine and integrative Chinese and Western medicine physicians may practice in the traditional Chinese medicine department, integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine department or other clinical departments in medical institutions in accordance with the registered practice category and scope of practice. In the past, there were certain obstacles for integrative medicine doctors to register in other departments, but the "Physician Law" broadened the scope of registration of traditional Chinese medicine and integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine, which is good news for relevant professional doctors. In addition, it is also clearly stipulated that Western medical physicians can adopt traditional Chinese medicine technical methods related to their profession in their practice activities after training and assessment in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state.

Third, privacy and personal information protection issues. Personal information is a gold mine, and the collection, transmission, acquisition and use of personal information should be paid special attention to in today's information society. In Article 23 of the Physician Law, it is particularly mentioned that patients are respected, cared for, and cared for, and patients' privacy and personal information are protected in accordance with law.

Now doctors do a lot of live broadcasting, and it is easy to leak patients' personal information. The doctor-patient relationship is a civil help relationship of equal subjects, the law requires doctors to be conscientious, which is what doctors can do, patients are willing to tell doctors their own private information, let doctors view their own bodies, access medical data, and ultimately are to protect the health and life safety of patients, not to use this information for profit or show, so it is very important to respect and protect the privacy of patients and the security of personal information.

Fourth, on informed consent. In the past, there were relevant provisions on informed consent in the "Tort Liability Law", and there were also provisions on the code of conduct of physicians, but there was no such thing as the "Doctor Law", and this time the "Doctor Law" added relevant provisions on informed consent.

Fifth, the issue of compliance with scientific research ethics. He Jiankui was sentenced because he forged an ethics review certificate and made gene editing without going through an ethical review. Therefore, when carrying out new technologies and new projects, doctors must pay attention to the purpose of scientific research and follow medical ethics.

Article 58 clearly stipulates that where physicians' professional ethics or medical ethics are seriously violated, causing a heinous social impact, the competent department of health of the people's government at the provincial level or above shall revoke the physician's practice certificate or order the cessation of illegal practice activities, and shall be prohibited from engaging in medical and health services or medical clinical research for five years until life.

Sixth, legal protection for emergency treatment. This point is transplanted from Article 184 of the Civil Code, for patients who need emergency treatment, doctors may not refuse emergency treatment; for patients whose lives are in danger who cannot contact the opinions of patients or their close relatives, with the approval of the person in charge of the medical institution or the authorized person in charge, corresponding medical measures can be immediately implemented; the state encourages doctors to actively participate in public place emergency services such as public transportation; and doctors who cause damage to the recipient due to voluntary implementation of first aid do not bear civil liability.

Seventh, the problem of over-prescribed medication. The "Physician Law" clearly stipulates that it is possible, but there must be procedural rules, not how to use it as you want. In special cases such as the absence of effective or better treatment methods, after obtaining the patient's explicit informed consent, the physician may use the drug usage that is not specified in the drug label but has evidence-based medical evidence to carry out treatment. Medical institutions shall establish a management system to review the appropriateness of physicians' prescriptions and medication orders, and strictly regulate physicians' medication behavior.

Eighth, the issue of the construction of the wind. Article 31: Physicians shall not take advantage of their position to demand or illegally accept property or other improper benefits; they shall not carry out unnecessary examinations or treatments on patients. The past demand was changed to a demand, and the demand was obtained, and if the request had this intention, it would not be allowed.

Ninth, the physician's reporting obligation. After this new crown epidemic, this time the legislation has further broadened the reporting obligations of doctors, including "the detection of infectious diseases, sudden unexplained diseases or abnormal health events". Hopefully, this will be noticed.

Tenth, the issue of lifelong bans. Article 58 has the description of "lifelong prohibition from engaging in medical and health services or medical clinical research", but this article is still difficult to be regarded as a system, just a sword hanging over everyone's head, this sword is to protect medical ethics and patient life and health safety, if you comply, this is the sword of protection, only violation, is the sword of punishment.

"But I personally once advocated from an academic point of view that a lifelong ban system for physicians should be established, hoping to ban people who deliberately violate the law and commit crimes for life." However, although there is a relevant description of the lifelong ban on business in the "Physician Law", as a very severe punishment result, there is not enough detailed. ”

For the new version of the Physician Law, lawyer Deng Liqiang said that one revision cannot solve all the problems at once. In this revision process, he has always hoped that there can be a relatively quantitative standard for the doctor's salary system, because the industry has been proposing to increase the salary of doctors, and the state also has two permits, allowing the breakthrough of the total salary, allowing it to be used for the development of human resources after the cost is removed.

However, in the end, the "Physician Law" still did not formulate a clear quantitative standard for the remuneration of doctors, and the remuneration, allowances, etc. in Article 44 were still a general description, which was a place where Lawyer Deng Liqiang felt some regrets.

In addition, with regard to the specialist system, Article 38 mentions that the state shall establish and improve a standardized training system for specialist physicians and continuously improve the level of specialized diagnosis and treatment of clinicians. However, in the pre-legislative research, some experts proposed that it is possible to directly make corresponding provisions for China's specialist system, but how the specialist system is connected with China's physician title system is also a problem that cannot be ignored, so in this legislation, the establishment of a specialist training system.

There is also a standardized training system for resident physicians, and many experts have proposed that when the standardized training of resident physicians is not allowed to go out, academic qualifications can be granted at the same time, this problem has been discussed a lot, and it is also a problem worth thinking about in the future revision.

Source: Medical community

Editor-in-charge: Zheng Huaju

Proofreader: Zang Hengjia

Plate making: Xue Jiao