La responsabilità civile nelle attività sanitarie

The thesis is based on the consideration that the medical liability system is configured today as a composite system: it is not only based on the doctor-patient direct relationship, a traditional topic for the study of medical liability, but rather on the overall relationships that, in addition to the private one, are established when a person is the beneficiary of medical services of any sort: diagnostic, preventive, therapeutic, surgical, welfare, etc. Furthermore, the attention to the condition of the subject of this activity (the patient) has increased, giving particular consideration to the terms and conditions whereby the consent has been granted, its premises, its contents and effects. Thus, the matter of civil liability affects several fields of law, which range from the healthcare to the organization and discipline of public and private institutions providing medical, hospital and welfare services and of course aspects of professional ethics. Many of these aspects have been interrelated and coordinated in the thesis in order to accomplish a multidisciplinary study. The thesis, from the particular point of view of civil law, shows a significant reverse in trend: until the late 90's the doctor-patient relationship was characterized by a substantial favor for the doctor, because, by practicing a free profession ࢠtypical of an uncertain science - the result of the performance was only tendentious, so that any negligence or fault were to be evaluated considering the difficulty of the performance. Nowadays, the issue has become more complex for several reasons: from the development of the profession, practiced with a less "personal" approach, with a less close relationship between doctor and patient to gradually more advanced stages.