Medical Law Forum - 2027

5th edition of the Medical Law Forum – Warsaw, May 21-22nd 2027 r.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at: forum@przegladprawamedycznego.pl

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We invite you to the 5th edition of Medical Law Forum, during which theoreticians and practitioners will meet again to discuss medicine, law and their intersections

The Medical Law Forum is an annual scientific conference with a long tradition, the first of its kind in the country, organized since 1999 and always inextricably linked to the activities of the scientific journal Law and Medicine - now the Medical Law Quarterly. The two ventures interact with each other, contributing to the scientific potential of the consideration of medical law and medical ethics. They serve to exchange experiences between doctors, lawyers and philosophers, and foster creative building of interdisciplinary bridges and enrichment of medical-legal thought, as well as in-depth discussions.

The aim of the conference is a comprehensive exchange of legal-ethical-medical ideas on a shared academic platform, and the building of an intellectual community that transcends divisions of professional and academic interests. We hope to welcome representatives of various medical communities, including higher education institutions, as well as lawyers from different academic centers and professional groups.

On the one hand, the educative role of law is expressed in the enactment of provisions that shape social attitudes toward new phenomena and techniques developed by medicine, such as medically assisted reproduction. On the other hand, the philosophy of medicine influences thinking about how to regulate issues that are particularly ethically charged. Moreover, a given clinical classification may determine how illness is understood, how it is assessed whether a person is still alive, or what the criteria of humanness are.

During this year’s edition, we intend to examine the mutual influences between medical law and both other branches of law and the philosophical, social, and medical sciences, including, among others:

• Medicine and the medical sciences allow increasingly far-reaching interventions in the body and mind, which prompts reflection on the reasonable limits of such interventions.
• The social sciences ask how far the individual can and should make sacrifices for the health of the community as a whole. This is why certain topics keep returning: vaccination and other forms of prevention – including prevention of sexually transmitted diseases – as well as periodic screening for diseases that impose high treatment costs on society, and fiscal incentives to undergo such screening.
• From a strictly legal perspective, questions persist about the criteria for substitute decision-making on behalf of patients affected by certain psychosomatic conditions. Questions also persist about the limits of paternalistic interventions in the health decisions of persons lacking full legal capacity. The absence of statutory criteria for judicial decision-making leads to a growing number of questions and an accumulation of misunderstandings. Medical ethics, in turn, often sets the direction of thinking in a way that temporarily or permanently stands in for the legislator.
• The achievements of medicine have a considerable impact on how the legal personhood and sovereignty of certain entities are assessed. Sooner or later, it will become indispensable to determine the status of these entities under family law. Disputes continue over the use of cryopreserved embryos after a couple separates, over the order of succession where such embryos are implanted after the donor’s death, and over the determination of legal motherhood in surrogacy. Related questions concern donor confidentiality and its waiver, the legal permissibility of surrogate mothers profiting financially and of earning income from surrogacy brokerage, the determination of support obligations, and the criminal-law consequences of the actions taken. Family law faces particular challenges in assessing filiation and in adopting specific criteria for it.

These and other issues at the intersection of disciplines raise questions about the effectiveness of the law in force, the directions in which it needs to change, and how to deal with any gaps identified. To what extent can the philosophy and ethics of medicine fill these gaps in a way that meets social needs? How can persons who are particularly vulnerable to harm be protected when the law provides no clear answers? To whom, and to what extent, should full respect for autonomy be guaranteed, and what role do physicians play in this?

The organizers have right to select abstracts on the basis of merit and compatibility with the intended scope of the topic.

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Venue: Medical University of Warsaw, conference room (level -1) at Children’s Clinical Hospital UCC MUW, ul. Żwirki i Wigury 63a, Warsaw
Fee: Registration and attendance is free of charge

Organizers:

• Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny
• Interdyscyplinarna Pracownia Prawa Karnego Medycznego i Farmaceutycznego (WPiA UW)
• Komitet Bioetyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
  

Under the honorary patronage of the Rector of Warsaw Medical University - prof. dr hab. Rafał Krenke

Organizing committee:

• dr hab. Maria Boratyńska, prof. ucz. - Head of the Comittee
• mgr Krzysztof Ślaski - Secretary of the Comittee
• mgr Aleksander Wiaderek

Scientific Council:

• dr hab. Maria Boratyńska, prof. ucz (WUM, UW, Komitet Bioetyki PAN)
• dr hab. Przemysław Konieczniak (Interdyscyplinarna Pracownia Prawa Karnego Medycznego i Farmaceutycznego WPiA UW)
• dr Joanna Różyńska (Komitet Bioetyki PAN)
  

Patronage: Medical Law Quarterly