A Question of Duty: Common Law Legal Issues Resulting from Physician Response to Unsolicited Patient Email Inquiries

This brief commentary will summarize the common law legal risks of responding and offering advice or diagnostic suggestions to patients over the Internet. It will focus primarily on the concept of duty and how it has evolved in the United States. (Medical negligence cases in the United States are state law causes of action. Thus there are jurisdictional differences from state to state. However, the concept of duty as discussed in this article is well-settled law, and the consensus in virtually all U.S. jurisdictions.