Year: 1988
Type: article
Abstract: Medical screening of workers, the use of medical criteria in the selection and maintenance of a work force, has become an established practice in many industries.Medical screening is not new.Since the turn of the century large industrial companies have employed "factory surgeons" to determine whether applicants and employees were free of disease and had the necessary strength, stamina, vision, hearing, and other physical attributes to perform the job.In recent years medical screening has changed both qualitatively and quantitatively.The purpose of screening no longer is simply to decide whether an individual is currently capable of performing the job.Increasingly, "predictive screening" attempts to identify whether currently capable individuals are at risk of developing a medical impairment at some future time.This newer form of medical screening is greatly affected by technological advancements and is likely to become an increasingly important part of the employee selection process.Each year American companies require their employees to submit to millions of blood tests, urine tests, x-rays, pulmonary function tests, and other medical and laboratory procedures.Why?How essential are these tests?How valuable and accurate is the information they yield?How does the law attempt to regulate medical screening?What policy questions are raised by medical screening?The burgeoning use of these procedures might suggest that medical screening of workers has been carefully considered, is accurate and effective, and results in net benefits to labor, management, and public health.Unfortunately, this is often not the case.Medical screening is often the inappropriate, simple, "high tech" answer to a wide range of complicated problems.Employers often implement workplace medical screening procedures without a thort Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Houston.A more detailed discussion of many of the issues in this article is contained in the author's forthcoming book, Medical Screening and Employee Health Costs.
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Author: Mark A. Rothstein
Institution: University of Chicago
Language: English
Subfield: Occupational Therapy
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2202342763