A medical license is an occupational license that permits a person to legally practice medicine. In most countries, a person must have a medical license bestowed either by a specified government-approved professional association or a government agency before they can practice medicine. Licenses are not granted automatically to all people with medical degrees. A medical school graduate must receive a license to practice medicine to legally be called a physician. The process typically requires testing by a medical board. The medical license is the documentation of authority to practice medicine within a certain locality. An active license is also required to practice medicine as an assistant physician, a physician assistant or a clinical officer in jurisdictions with authorizing legislation.
Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 83 U.S. 130 (1873), was a United States Supreme Court case that solidified the narrow reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and determined that the right to practice a profession was not among these privileges. Brought by Myra Bradwell, the case is also notable for being an early 14th Amendment challenge to sex discrimination in the United States.
Hawker v. New York, 170 U.S. 189 (1898), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a New York state law preventing convicted felons from practicing medicine, even when the felony conviction occurred before the law was enacted.
Sham peer review or malicious peer review is a name given to the abuse of a medical peer review process to attack a doctor for personal or other non-medical reasons. The American Medical Association conducted an investigation of medical peer review in 2007 and concluded that while it is easy to allege misconduct and 15% of surveyed physicians indicated that they were aware of peer review misuse or abuse, cases of malicious peer review able to be proven through the legal system are rare.
Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168 (1869), is a U.S. corporate law decision by the United States Supreme Court. It held that a corporation is not a citizen within the meaning of the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Of greater consequence, the Court further held that "issuing a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce," effectively removing the business of insurance beyond the United States Congress's legislative reach.
Thomas Hamlet Averett was a slave owner and U.S. Representative from Virginia.
Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons v. California Medical Association, 224 Cal. App. 2d 378 was a legal case between two medical associations in the state of California. The case was under review in California state courts from 1962-1964. After numerous appeals, the California Supreme Court ruling found the California Medical Association's refusal to grant osteopathic physicians licensure to practice medicine in the state of California to be unconstitutional.
Mark R. Geier is an American former physician and controversial professional witness who testified in more than 90 cases regarding allegations of injury or illness caused by vaccines. Since 2011, Geier's medical license has been suspended or revoked in every state in which he was licensed over concerns about his autism treatments and his misrepresentation of his credentials to the Maryland Board of Health, where he falsely claimed to be a board-certified geneticist and epidemiologist.
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) of the United States is a national non-profit organization that represents the 71 state medical and osteopathic boards of the United States and its territories and co-sponsors the United States Medical Licensing Examination. Medical boards license physicians, investigate complaints, discipline those who violate the law, conduct physician evaluations, and facilitate the rehabilitation of physicians where appropriate. The FSMB's mission calls for "continual improvement in the quality, safety and integrity of health care through the development and promotion of high standards for physician licensure and practice."
Participation of medical professionals in American executions is a controversial topic, due to its moral and legal implications. The practice is proscribed by the American Medical Association, as defined in its Code of Medical Ethics. The American Society of Anesthesiologists endorses this position, stating that lethal injections "can never conform to the science, art and practice of anesthesiology".
Assisted suicide is suicide with the aid of another person. In the United States, the term "assisted suicide" is typically used to describe what proponents refer to as medical aid in dying, in which terminally ill adults are prescribed and self-administer barbiturates if they feel that they are suffering significantly. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), "physician-assisted dying", "physician-assisted death", "assisted death" and "medical aid in dying" (MAiD).
Marmaduke Herbert Dent was a West Virginia soldier, lawyer, politician and judge of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals (1893-1904).
Mayo Foundation v. United States, 562 U.S. 44 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Treasury Department regulation on the grounds that the courts should defer to government agencies in tax cases in absence of an unreasonable decision on the part of the agency.
Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U.S. 552 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a Vermont statute that restricted the sale, disclosure, and use of records that revealed the prescribing practices of individual doctors violated the First Amendment.
NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the reservation of jurisdiction by a federal district court did not bar the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a state court's ruling, and also overturned certain laws enacted by the state of Virginia in 1956 as part of the Stanley Plan and massive resistance, as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The statutes here stricken down by the Supreme Court had expanded the definitions of the traditional common law crimes of champerty and maintenance, as well as barratry, and had been targeted at the NAACP and its civil rights litigation.
Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U.S. 581 (1926), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that reaffirmed the National Prohibition Act's limitation on the dispensation of alcoholic medicines. The five-to-four decision, written by Justice Louis D. Brandeis, affirmed the dismissal of a suit in which New York City physician Samuel Lambert sought to prevent Edward Yellowley, the acting federal prohibition director, from enforcing the Prohibition Act so as to preclude him from prescribing alcoholic medicines. The decision affirmed the police powers of the individual states, as well as the power of the Necessary and Proper Clause of the United States Constitution, which was cited in upholding the Prohibition Act's limitations as a necessary and proper implementation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Frank Cox was a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia from January 1, 1905 until his retirement January 28, 1907.
North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, 574 U.S. 494 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case on the scope of immunity from US antitrust law. The Supreme Court held that a state occupational licensing board that was primarily composed of persons active in the market it regulates has immunity from antitrust law only when it is actively supervised by the state. The North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners had relied on the Parker immunity doctrine, established by the Supreme Court case Parker v. Brown, which held that actions by state governments acting in their sovereignty did not violate antitrust law.
James Edmund Reeves was a West Virginia physician and one of the leaders of the American public health movement in the nineteenth century. Reeves was the brother of Ann Reeves Jarvis, the woman who inspired the Mother's Day holiday in the United States.
