Strangers in the Night: Law and Medicine in the Managed Care Era.

• Position: Brief Article - Book Review

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; 800-451-7556; www.oup.com.

Our health-care system is at a crossroads. Costs continue their relentless rise, while patients complain about not receiving needed health-care services. As an added complication, the legal system plays an increasingly prominent role in how health care is organized, financed, and delivered. More than ever before, resolving the health-care crisis requires cooperation between physicians and attorneys. Patients, physicians, and health-care administrators thus have a large stake in how the law influences medical care.

This book explains how the legal system helps shape health-care delivery and policy, explores new ways of looking at the relationship between law and medicine, and reflects on why it all matters. The story focuses on the judicial response to the rise of managed care, especially...