Le linee guida nella nuova legge di riforma della responsabilità medica

The increasing complexity of clinical practice has significantly strengthened the need for guidelines that provide physicians with clear professional standards for inspiration and, not infrequently, cling to withstand the wind of a sometimes excessive responsibility of their activities. Clinical guidelines are defined as «systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances». The fact that the guidelines indicate the rules of proper practice of the profession has led many doctors to hope that, according to them, they could avoid incurring liability. The doctrine has long held that the rules contained in the guidelines can have an abstract value, but the assessment of the behaviour of the physician must be conducted in the light of all the data of the individual and concrete clinical cases, which certainly can not be taken into consideration by the drafters of the guidelines. Although the medi