Actually, it doesn't. I am lawfully obligated only to provide medical treatment for my patient. As a physician, I am not responsible for protecting my patient from outside harm. If I'm seeing a patient and someone comes in and starts kicking his ass, I am absolutely not required to defend the patient. There is a chance, after all, that I'm mistaken. So why don't you find me the law that says otherwise.
I also don't see anything in the AMA Code of Medical ethics about protecting my patients from external harm (though I'll admit I don't have the whole thing memorized). So again, why don't you find that part for me and prove me wrong.
I'm going to respectfully disagree, tell you why, and then try to be done with this thread. I don't like arguing with senior SDN'ers, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, and I accept that you guys are in there doing this, and I have a long way to go. I have my own experiences which are not insignificant, but I'm just not here to have super-heated debates and piss people off. This is why I backed off this debate earlier.
Having said that, I respectfully decline to root through the ethical code and serve up on a silver platter the section that says medical professionals have a basic duty to provide a reasonably safe and secure environment for their unconscious patients. It is there, I assure you, and please check with your own OLC or whatever you have, if you don't think it is.
Now, onto the question of what "the law" requires you to do.
Preliminarily, if you are an ER doc, even if you are an independent contractor, your actions probably engender liability on the part of the hospital. So in that sense your professional duty may be larger in scope than you think, if we define duty simply as any obligation the breach of which creates liability to the person to whom the duty is owed.
So let's understand what "the law" encompasses. It is not only regulations and statutes, but also the common law. So as other posters have suggested, let's pretend that someone came into your hospital, and said "Hi I am here to assault your patient, where is she?" And let's say that you tell this person "right over there," and you take no further action, whereupon your unconscious patient is promptly assaulted by this person. Your actions -- or omissions -- are a breach of the standard of care. I sincerely promise you, there exists a duty to provide some minimal degree of safety when you assume the care of unconscious persons.
What if an unconscious patient had a light fixture fall on her head. The hospital could be liable. If you as the physician saw the light fixture dangling precariously, and did nothing, claiming it is not your job to repair fixtures, I predict that you could be liable, or at least your actions would cement and exacerbate the hospital's liability. This is an analogy, and I hope it makes the point without precipitating further distinctions and digressions.
Now, you can argue that this duty doesn't extend to a confrontation with law enforcement officers. That may well find receptive ears, but it probably would be a question of fact for a jury to decide, so you're going to trial on that. OK? I don't think that's where you want to be if you ran away and hid, leaving your nurse to deal with the deranged police officer.
So "the law" -- specifically the common law of physician and hospital liability
*** -- says you must take basic, reasonable measures to prevent harm from befalling your unconscious patient. The extent to which that law might require you to resist a law enforcement officer is very debatable, and quite frankly, you might not know until a jury verdict comes back. Sometimes that is the only way to define the outer boundaries of the law: take it to trial and see.
If you don't believe me, please, ask your own OLC or your own medmal attorney. Ask them, "would I (or the hospital if you are an ER doc) be liable if I did nothing whatsoever to stop someone who stated an intention to assault my unconscious patient?" You might defeat the plaintiff at trial, but you would be
facing liability, because the plaintiff can show you breached the standard of care by totally ignoring an imminent assault, rather than taking "reasonable" measures to prevent the assault, i.e. calling security, or even just saying "no you can't do that, please leave."
***If you find the phrasing "against the law" to be more suggestive of a criminal or regulatory infraction, then I can accept that, and perhaps it was not the best phrase for me to use, even if technically correct.
***
TL/DR -- if you can be held civilly liable for something, it is against "the law," and you can certainly be held liable for unreasonably failing to take basic precautions to protect your unconscious patient from harm.
