Hello Law School and friends,

This November, we touch on the intersection between law and medicine. This intersection is inevitable. This is largely because all lawyers fall sick at some point in their life.

So last month, I was sitting in the doctor’s office when he starts reminiscing about the fierce rivalry between the Law and Medicine faculties in the 1990s. He asks me if it is still the case. I say somewhat.

“I remember the female law students were very pretty. We would go and look at them,” says the doctor dreamily. “But the female medical students… [unsuitable for publication].”

The learned doctor then expounds his scientific theory on how law students are selected for their looks through the admissions interview.

“I have never seen an ugly female law student,” says he, empathically.

I swear the above really happened.

Other than in times of sickness and in matters of the heart, medical negligence is the other obvious intersection. We all remember the infamous Gunapathy case.

Just this year, came the tragic sequel to Gunapathy – a woman dies after donating her kidney to her husband. Here is the chance for the court to change the course of the law. Everybody waits with bated breath. So… did the court apply the Bolam and Bolitho test in the end? Read our sub-editor’s commentary on Surender Singh to find out.

Other than in the courts, there was also a ripple in Parliament over the proposed changes to the Medical Registration Act. The proposed amendments included having a legal professional chair the Singapore Medical Council disciplinary tribunals.

The doctors revolted. The idea was scrapped.

Chong Yeh Woei, president of the Singapore Medical Association, was reported in local newspapers as saying: “We are appreciative that the Minister has taken our views into consideration. We look at the SMC as an ethical court, and we welcome the fact that it continues to stay ethical as opposed to legalistic.”

(Aren’t the Singapore courts of law also ethical courts? But I digress.)

Law and medicine also intersect in the sports arena. Come January 2010, we shall be fighting to win back the title at the annual Law-Med Challenge. If my doctor’s words are to be trusted – and dare I say otherwise – I propose a row of pretty classmates on the sidelines to distract our rivals.

Articles in this issue of Juris:

• Teaching Ethics in NUS Medical School by Alessa Pang (here)
• Informed Consent: Dialogue by Singhealth, SGH & Medico-Legal Society by Calvin Magnus (here)
• NUH Liable for Causing Kidney Donor’s Death by Sim Junhui (here)
• Suitable Punishments for Babykillers by Melanie Hong (here)
• Allowing Compensation under the New HOTA by Mubin Shah (here)
• No Money? No Tamiflu for you by Tom Chou (here)

All the best for the dreaded exams,

CHARISSA L.
Deputy Chief Editor & Juris Illuminae Editor
Singapore Law Review Editorial Board