Responsibility and accountability in provider-patient relationships

Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) is no longer an experimental procedure. Nevertheless, much remains controversial about it. From the legal perspective, general principles of accountability and responsibility apply readily to the CABG context. Issues concerning the proper standard of care and the obligation to obtain informed consent, generic problems in the law of medical malpractice, have direct application to CABG. Similarly, there are reasonably standard questions of accountability for individual practitioners and institutional providers. Although the application of general principles of accountability to CABG will undoubtedly raise interesting nuances, the law of medical malpractice appears to be sufficiently developed to encompass the specific issues of CABG within its structure.