Important happenings in the drug and device arena.

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The peer review process is indispensable to promotion of quality in medical facilities. A major component of the process is honesty; without open investigation and discussion of adverse events and their causes, meaningful reforms for avoiding the same occurrences again are less likely to be made. To ensure open discourse, nearly every state has enacted laws protecting the confidentiality of peer review proceedings. However, federal law may not always be so deferent to the privacy concerns of the peer review committee. In certain circumstances, what most participants thought would be a closed record under state law might be opened by competing federal law enacted to protect the disabled.

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It is now common knowledge that the Centers for Disease Control and the American Medical Association consider obesity to be a high-priority medical problem. To combat the growing epidemic, bariatric surgery, which is indicated for 'severely' or 'morbidly' obese patients ' generally defined as a body mass index (BMI) over 40 (a 'normal' BMI is 19-25) ' has become increasingly popular. Surgery may also be indicated for patients with a BMI between 35 and 40, if there are significant co-morbid conditions.

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Modern understanding of medical malpractice is based upon the presence of a physician-patient relationship. This specific relationship gives rise to a special duty on the part of the physician, the breach of which is one of the requirements for finding professional negligence. Although this consensual relationship is often discussed and thought of in terms of an express contract ' that the relationship is created when professional medical services are 'offered' voluntarily and those services are 'accepted' voluntarily by another ' most courts have held that the creation of the relationship need not satisfy the formalities of a contract.

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Highlights of the latest commercial leasing cases from around the country.

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Today, most large tenants and many small tenants require that their core business be protected in a power or community shopping center by obtaining an agreement from the landlord that grants the tenant the exclusive right to sell the items considered by that tenant to be its core business. This 'exclusive' is considered sacrosanct by most retailers and, in most circumstances, will need to be agreed to by a landlord in order to consummate a lease with that tenant.

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Several issues or potential issues arise when addressing the presence of vertical and horizontal transportation within the common areas of an enclosed regional shopping center. The first part of this article discussed accessibility and visibility. The conclusion addresses relocation or closure of the transportation, and changing the means of transportation. Sample provisions are provided.