[Limitations of preclinical emergency medicine from the legal viewpoint]

Revised and Annotated Version of the Author's Lecture held at the 13th Annual Meeting on Emergency Care Medicine on 14 March 1998 at Baden-baden, Germany. This article highlights the limitations of preclinical emergency care medicine from a legal viewpoint. Among other problems, focus is also on the problem whether a particular emergency care measure can be expected from the emergency physician. Much attention is devoted to a discussion on treating a patient against his will, this constituting a differentiated borderline case in emergency medicine. Another equally differentiated problem concerns the economic aspects--for example, whether an emergency treatment pays returns in terms of economy. This is no limitation in individual cases where emergency treatment is medically indicated, but it does exercise an influence on pre-planning the security level of emergency care services. There are no limitations for emergency services from a legal point of view imposed by the patient's age or his or her domicile in a home for the aged or infirm.