The Nature of Medical Obligations in the Light of Comparative Study

Contemplating about the nature of the obligation of medical professionals, one realizes that although the jurists have not explicitly specified medical professional obligations such as the obligation to result or to instrument, this is obvious from the tenor of their words and statements. In the Shiite jurisprudence, the majority of jurists hold that the physician liability may only be aborted by receiving absolutions before surgery. In the Sunnite jurisprudence, however, the majority of jurists opposes the opinion of Shiite jurists and basically consider physicianʹs obligation as the obligation to the instrument. In the laws of Islamic countries, France, and in General Law, physicianʹs obligation is basically regarded as the obligation to the instrument, too. In the statutory laws of Iran, it also seems that unlike the legislatureʹs view that has apparently deemed the physicianʹs obligation is a obligation to the result, following the majority of jurists, the physicianʹs obligation is principally the obligation to the instrument in the case of obtaining permission and having proficiency; but in some particular cases and based on reasonable grounds, the nature of medical professionals obligations has been introduced as a commitment to the outcome. Therefore, the nature of medical obligations and its manifestations are studied in this paper using a comparative view. For this purpose, the analytical discussion of the obligations of the medical professionals and their affiliates in some of their disputed, common, and involved applications such as prostheses, blood transfusions, medical trials, anesthesia processes, guaranteeing the patientsʹ health and cosmetic surgeries have been addressed.