Medicolegal issues affecting sports medicine practitioners

The practice of sports medicine represents a unique subspecialty within the discipline of medicine. Practitioners provide care for athletes who engage in activities that may put the athletes at risk for serious injury. Physicians may be held legally liable for not doing a standardized pre-participation evaluation, for not administering adequate on-site or after injury care, or for violating an individual's civil rights by refusing to allow continued participation because of medical risk. The courts now are being asked to define obvious and necessary risks. Medical law addresses the behavior, obligation, and liability-affecting physicians who provide care for athletes. Many ethical and medicolegal issues must be resolved by the legal system because coaches, athletic trainers, on-call physicians, physicians providing pre-participation physicals, and the team physician are being held responsible for injuries sustained during athletic competition. This review is intended to assist all physicians who take care of athletes by outlining their legal obligations and risks. Armed with this knowledge, we expect that the sports medicine physician will be better able to focus on patient care within the context of medicolegal obligations.