[Changes in medical standards and the need for adjusting legal standards of care from the point of view of criminal law].

In addition to the possibility of adjusting medical standards to the limited resources in health care, which is also included in civil law, German criminal law provides various other instruments. These include (1) the subjective person-related standard of diligence, (2) a restriction of the associated legal concept of "Ubernahmeverschulden" (fault by assumption), (3) admissible risk, (4) social adequacy, and (5) reasonableness and possibility within the scope of criminal omission. Although especially social adequacy and reasonableness and possibility from the point of view of criminal law may lead to satisfactory solutions, the adjustment of medical standards should--for the sake of the unity of law--be preferred so that synchronization with civil law liability may thus be achieved.

[Do clinical guidelines and economic restrictions on health care affect the criminal liability of health care professionals?].

Criminal liability in connection with clinical guidelines relates to several different aspects: (1) It refers to the guideline authors' liability under criminal law in the case of faulty guidelines. (2) Guidelines do not constitute legally binding rules. They can only contribute to determining the standard for medical specialists.