Intersecting Professions: A Public Health Perspective on Law to Address Heath Care Conflicts

This paper examines the intersection between the two professions – law and medicine – with reference to systematic transformations that have characterized their development in the past century. In particular, the paper examines the co-emergence of the new public health and health promotion scholarship along with the development of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) movement in the second half of the 20th century. The two movements, with their later developments, have aspired to change the focus of professionals in the field, and both have been tremendously successful on the one hand, and on the other have remained marginal to mainstream training and identity building of contemporary lawyers and doctors.