Search for ex-students as medical law course turns 30

A search is on to find former students who studied on Cardiff Law School’s Legal Aspects of Medical Practice course over the past 30 years.

More than 500 people – many of them now eminent legal and health professionals – have undertaken Cardiff University’s LLM Masters’ programme.

Former Home Office pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, and Dr Frank Atherton, Chief Medical Officer for Wales, will join former students and staff for a 30^th anniversary dinner on 23 September.

Professor Vivienne Harpwood, who established the course back in 1987, is appealing for alumni to get in touch.

“Our former students have gone on to become senior medical practitioners, barristers, NHS managers, and work across a whole host of professions,” said the former Course Director.

“Whilst we’ve kept in contact with many, a few have changed jobs, moved abroad or changed email addresses, and we’ve lost touch...”

Dr Stephen Smith, Course Director, said: “We’re offering alumni a chance to brush up on their law during the day before the evening event. Medico-legal issues such as consent to treatment, the continuing important of human rights and the future of EU law in post-Brexit Britain continue to be some of the hottest topics facing the UK’s legal and healthcare professionals.”

After-dinner speaker will be distinguished novelist and eminent former Home Office pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight CBE.

His passion for medico-legal issues played a major role in establishing the course.

Professor Knight said: “Thirty years ago, there were very few professionally tailored part-time courses that could offer medical professionals insight into fast-changing medico-legal issues. Since then, patients have become more aware of their rights, the structure of healthcare delivery has become much more complex, and questions around legal liability abound, making the course even more essential today than it was three decades ago.”

Hosted by the University’s Centre for Health and Social Care Law, the birthday programme features a day-long refresher course examining the medico-legal landscape.