Improper performance of professional duties by medical and pharmaceutical professionals: Current status and problems of counteraction

Abstract

Protecting the lives of citizens and providing qualified medical care is of utmost importance in times of war. At the same time, statistics show that numerous cases of criminal offences committed by healthcare professionals do not result in them actually serving a criminal sentence. The purpose of this study was to investigate the issues of non-performance or improper performance of professional duties by medical and pharmaceutical professionals and to outline the problematic aspects of combating these criminal offences and the ways to address them. The study employed a combination of both general scientific (general dialectical, analysis, synthesis, legal, induction, and deduction) and special (systemic-structural, statistical, critical) methods of knowledge to identify, analyse, and interpret data. The study made it possible to state that there are a range of problems impeding the effective prosecution of medical and pharmaceutical professionals for criminal offences, and to classify the identified complications into subjective and objective ones, related not only to the training of medical professionals, judicial, and law enforcement agencies, but also to legislative gaps and problems in medicine, which lead to a high level of latency of medical torts, ineffective pre-trial investigation of medical torts, as well as avoidance of criminal liability by medical professionals. Therefore, combating these crimes is largely reduced to recording them by law enforcement officials. The unsatisfactory performance of professional duties by doctors not only negatively affects the quality of services provided to patients, but also leads to serious consequences in the form of their death or considerable damage to the health of the victims. The findings of this study will be useful for practitioners of investigative bodies engaged in qualification and investigation of the torts under study, will contribute to the development of a strategy to improve the effectiveness of combating such criminal offences, and will also be useful for medical professionals to prevent mistakes leading to serious consequences for the life and health of patients, as well as in the context of motivation to perform their professional duties in good faith