Medical Negligence

John Garfield qualified in medicine from Cambridge and St. Mary's. Initially he planned to do neurology but after the MRCP and National Service, he embarked in 1961 on a training in neurosurgery at Atkinson Morley's Hospital (St. George's) and the National Hospital, Queen Square. He was appointed Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Wessex Neurological Centre, Southampton, in 1968, and retired from clinical practice in 1992. His particular neurosurgical interests and publications include: head injury, intracranial abscess, subarachnoid haemorrhage, lumbar degenerative disease, lumbar dysraphism, malignant intracranial tumours, chiasmal compression, and trigeminal neuralgia. He has been Chairman of the Wessex regional Medical Advisory Committee, Chairman of the Specialist Advisory Committee in Neurological Surgery, Chairman of the Ethico-legal Committee of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies, and President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons." Since 1977 he has been a member of the Cases Committee of the Medical Defence Union. His work for the MDU, for health authorities, and for plaintiffs and their solicitors has led to his advising in over five hundred cases. This material has formed the basis of his own contributions and his editorship of the book. He is also a photographer and his monochrome work ahs been shown in numerous exhibitions, and in the two photographic books which he has published. Dr. C.J. Earl received his medical education at Guy's Hospital where he did house appointments. Later and after service as a medical officer in the RAF, he spent two years as a lecturer in the Department of Clinical Pathology at Guy's Hospital Medical School. He was awarded a Traveling Scholarship which took him to the Harvard Department of Neurosurgery at the Boston City Hospital where he spent a year. He continued his neurological training at the national Hospital for neurology and Neurosurgery and at Guy's Hospital. He was appointed Consultant Physician at the National Hospital, at the London Hospital and at Moorfields Eye Hospital where he pursued his interest in neuro-opthalmic problems. Later he became Consultant Neurologist at the Middlesex Hospital and Director of the Department of Neurological Studies in the Medical School. At the Royal College of Physicians he served as a Censor and as Chairman of the Committee on Neurology. He was Chairman of the Specialist Advisory Committee in Neurology of the Joint Committee on Higher Medical Training. He was Consultant Advisor in neurology to the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health, Chairman of the Department of Transport Committee on medical aspects of fitness to drive, and Civil Consultant in Neurology to the Royal Air Force. He has been a member of the council of the Medical defence Union and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Management.

Foreword by e Rt. Hon. The Lord Goff of Chieveley The Law; Avoiding Litigation; Assessment and Quantification of Neurological Disability; General Practice; Head Injury; The Cervical Spine: trauma and degenerative disease; The Lumbar Spine; The Thoracic Spine; Spinal Tumours and Infection; Infections of the Central Nervous System; Iatropathic Lesions of Peripheral Nerves; Paediatric Neurology; Congenital Anomalies of the Central Nervous System; Subarachnoid Haemorrhage; Intracranial Tumours; Neuroradiology; Epilepsy; Adverse Effects of Medication on the Nervous System; Psychosurgery; Table of Cases; Index