Professor Penney Lewis, University of London Research Fellow (January to April 2010)
The School of Advanced Study is delighted to announce that Professor Penney Lewis of the School of Law and Centre of Medical Law and Ethics, King’s College London, has been selected as the next University of London Research Fellow, to be based in the School. Professor Lewis’ research interests concern medical law, and criminal evidence and procedure. In the area of criminal evidence and procedure, she has written extensively on prosecutions for childhood sexual abuse which take place many years after the alleged events, and in 2006 published a monograph on this topic entitled Delayed Prosecution for Childhood Sexual Abuse, which is part of the Oxford University Press series Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice.
In the medical law area, her research focuses on end of life issues. She is the author of a number of articles on assisted dying (euthanasia and assisted suicide) and her monograph entitled Assisted Dying and Legal Change was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. She has also published articles and chapters dealing with a wide range of medical law topics, including wrongful life, advance decision-making, refusal of treatment, medical treatment of children and medical procedures which are against the interests of incompetent adults, such as non-therapeutic research.
During her time at the School, Professor Lewis will bring together her two main areas of interest, exploring the relationship between the criminal law and medical practice by examining one of the ways in which the criminal law is used to regulate the behaviour of both health care professionals and patients. The ‘medical exception’ protects health care professionals from prosecution for the performance of ‘proper medical treatment’ which would otherwise constitute an assault or other offence against the person, even with the consent of the patient. Most medical procedures fall obviously into the medical exception, which is well established in English law and across the common law world. This project focuses on procedures which may not be covered by the medical exception, either because the doctor’s intention is not sufficiently therapeutic (eg contraceptive sterilisation, organ donation and non-therapeutic research), and/or because the label ‘proper medical treatment’ is or was controversial (eg euthanasia, gender reassignment surgery and amputation for body integrity identity disorder). The project concentrates on how such procedures are incorporated within the medical exception over time, and the role played by social approval, acceptance within the relevant scientific or professional community or recognition as a form of treatment in this process.
Professor Lewis will give a seminar in the Dean’s Seminar series entitled Controversial Medical Procedures and the Criminal Law on Wednesday 24th February 2010 at 12.30.
