Drs Bramhall and Bawa-Garba and the rightful domain of the criminal law.

In the wake of two recent high-profile, controversial cases involving the prosecution and conviction of Drs Bramhall and Bawa-Garba, this article considers when it is socially desirable to criminalise doctors' behaviour, exploring how the matters of harm, public wrongs and the public interest can play out to justify-or not, as the case may be-the criminal law's intervention. Dr Bramhall branded his initials on patients' livers during transplant surgery, behaviour acknowledged not to have caused his patients any harm by way of injury to their organs. Dr Bawa-Garba misdiagnosed and failed to properly assess a 6-year-old boy with pneumonia and sepsis under her care, who subsequently died. Taking account of contextual and public interest concerns, can and should there be exceptions to imposing criminal liability where a doctor's behaviour is deemed grossly negligent and a significant contribution to a patient's death? And is it really appropriate to subject a doctor to penal sanction where he may have committed a private wrong against a patient, but does not set back their interests?

Memories of Ken Mason.

John Kenyon Mason (19 December 1919-26 January 2017), CBE, MD, LLD, FRCPath, DMJ, FRCPE, FRSE, and known as Ken Mason to us all, was Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1973-1985 and thereafter Emeritus Professor of Forensic Medicine and Honorary Fellow in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh. A formal obituary to Professor Mason is published in the Scotsman (http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-professor-ken-mason-medical-jurisprudence-pioneer-1-4357181). We offer some personal tributes to our friend and colleague.

BREACHING THE SEXUAL BOUNDARIES IN THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP: SHOULD ENGLISH LAW RECOGNISE FIDUCIARY DUTIES?

In this article, I argue that sexual exploitation in the doctor-patient relationship would be dealt with more appropriately by the law in England and Wales on the basis of a breach of fiduciary duty. Three different types of sexual boundary breaches are discussed, and the particular focus is on breaches where the patient's consent is obtained through inducement. I contend that current avenues of redress do not clearly catch this behaviour and, moreover, they fail to capture the essence of the wrong committed by the doctor-the knowing breach of trust for self-gain-and the calculated way in which consent is induced. Finally, I demonstrate that the fiduciary approach is compatible with the contemporary pro-patient autonomy model of the doctor-patient relationship.

Pushing the boundaries of lawful assisted dying in The Netherlands? Existential suffering and lay assistance.

Two matters that have a significant presence in the contemporary Dutch assisted dying debate, are the nature of the suffering required for an assisted death to be lawful, and the issue of who can lawfully assist. This article explores whether the lawful medical assisted dying model is too restrictive in failing to recognise existential suffering, considering selected case studies involving such suffering and lay assisted death. It addresses the question whether The Netherlands would take a trip down a slippery slope if the lawful model of assisted death were extended to cases where individuals are 'tired of life'.

The de-medicalisation of assisted dying: is a less medicalised model the way forward?

Although assisted dying has been most commonly presented within a medicalised framework, the notion of de-medicalisation is employed in this paper to suggest that there are emerging models of assisted dying in which some medical aspects assumed to be an integral part of the phenomenon are both challenged and diminished. The paper considers cases where relatives have facilitated a loved one's assisted suicide abroad, cases of assisted death in which the assistor in the actual suicide act is a non-medic, and the growing debate surrounding non-medical grounds for desiring death. In evaluating the potential impact of partial de-medicalisation on the assisted dying debate, the argument presented is that whilst a de-medicalised model could well contribute to a richer understanding of assisted dying and a better death for the person who is assisted, there are cogent reasons to retain some aspects of the medicalised model and that a completely de-medicalised model of assisted dying is unrealistic.

Doctors and nurses of death: a case study of eugenically motivated killing under the Nazi 'euthanasia' programme.

This article reviews newly declassified US intelligence files and other sources, including relevant trial documents, related to the Nazi killing of mentally and physically sick individuals deemed to be of little further use to society. It both supplements and revises existing work on the so-called 'Euthanasia' programme at the Kaufbeuren psychiatric institution in Bavaria, and highlights a series of gender issues related to the involvement of women nurses including Catholic nuns, in this institute. In addition, this study not only casts new light on the way in which patients were, from admission onwards, redefined as disposable objects but also emphasises contradictions within the defence case of the defendants.