Aesthetic Medicine as Global Trend in Public Health: Concept of Legal Problems and Liability Issues from Latvian Perspective
Main Article Content
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7895-4264
PhD Karina Palkova
Mg.iur. Marina Loseviča
Abstract
Today, the concept of public health may be viewed much more broadly, considering both the meaning of the word “health,” which includes not only the physical state of a person, but also the emotional and psychological state. Public health is often understood only as health promotion, but it also includes occupational safety, occupational health, improvement of the health care system and other subfields. The public’s emotional health is also mentioned more often in the context of public health, which is based on considerations of aesthetics, i.e., aesthetic medicine manipulations changing person’s appearance. Advances in modern medicine are not only associated with disease prevention, diagnostics, treatment, rehabilitation, or patient care. That is, they are not solely related to human physical well-being and overcoming diseases. Medicine has gone beyond the boundaries of necessity and the opportunities that it provides are related to such categories as aesthetics, as the improvement of the body given by nature through medical procedures. Aesthetic medicine has brought to the forefront the subject that is relevant both at the national and international level and that is based on the question “What is beauty?” Considering the multifaceted nature of the word beauty, at the global level, there are certain obstacle to an agreement on a unified approach in the context of the legal framework for aesthetic medicine. The above can be explained by the diversity of relationships, opinions, and services.
Aesthetic medicine solves the person’s appearance problems, such as facial and bodily aesthetic imperfections. There is no doubt as regards the possibility of using the aesthetic medicine services. However, the legal framework for aesthetic medicine in terms of its content raises questions such as whether aesthetic medicine is treatment and what are the patients’ rights in receiving aesthetic medicine services, especially in cases where complications or other health damage have occurred after receiving the service. The legal framework for settlement of these issues is incomplete. In many countries, aesthetic medicine services are not regulated by a special legal act, and the patients are not provided with specific rights applicable to aesthetic medicine. In practice, the lack of legal framework poses a problem for separation of the provision and reception of services from medical treatment, at the same time there is an issue with the patients’ awareness of a specific aesthetic medicine service in the context of patients’ will, as well as issue of compensations if the patients’ health is harmed.
The purpose of the article is to study the legal framework jointly with legal doctrine and judicial practice to put forward proposals for improving the legal framework, ensuring patient protection.
Article Details
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