This book builds upon the successful Controversies in Health Law (1999) and Disputes and Dilemmas in Health Law (2006). Under the same editorship, it is substantially larger (37 chapters instead of 18 and 30 respectively) and correspondingly more comprehensive. It retains the lively analysis and the focus on controversial and cutting-edge problems in health law.

The chapters are broken up into 10 parts covering Human Rights Issues; Ethico-Legal Issues; Global Health Issues; Consent Issues; Privacy and Confidentiality Issues; Reproductive Technology Issues; Health Research Issues; Death and Dying Issues; Legal Liability Issues; and Reform and Regulatory Issues.

They consider issues raised by new technologies, changing legislation and altering community expectations; by new regulatory processes for medicine and all of the health professions; by important changes to civil liability for medical negligence; by likely changes to the legality of assisted dying/euthanasia law; by biobanking and embryo research.

Tensions and Traumas in Health Law covers questions on property in human tissue and on the ethical and legal aspects of the genetics revolution; provides a modern take on ‘old’ issues such as reproductive law and on refusal of treatment for seriously ill minors; takes account of changes relating to the delivery of health services such as global and public health law policies, and by health tourism; reviews the dilemmas posed by regulation of unregistered health professions, research misconduct and the forensic role of health practitioners; and discusses how difficult cases in relation to informed consent, lost chance litigation, mental harm claims and wrongful birth cases have pushed compensability to its edges.