近年來，臺灣地區的醫療糾紛案件已有日益增加的趨勢，因此，現行醫療責任制度是否能有效運作，達到事前的阻遏效果和事後的補償效果，即成為各界所關注的議題。本文即針對此一問題，廣泛地討論醫療責任制度的理想與實際執行時所面臨的問題，並檢討臺灣現行規範醫療責任的相關法規及其執行時所造成的影響。本文的研究發現，我國現行的醫療責任制度醫師與病人雙方皆不滿意。現行制度不但無法有效發揮醫療責任制度所希望達到的阻遏作用與補償作用，同時也對醫療體系產生了許多不良的影嚮。因此尋求改革現行的醫療責任制度，如加強事前的醫療品質管制措施與實施無過失賠償制度，應是未來研究的方 向。

　　　　　The purpose of this paper is to investigate the operation of the current medical liability system in Taiwan. The primary issues that I address are on the following three aspects: (1) How the current medical liability system is used to assure the quality of medical care and to prevent medical injury;(2) How the system determines the liability if an injury occurs; (3) Whether the system can achieve its dual goals of deterrence and compensation. If rst provide a conceptual framework to analyze the goals of medical liability system. I then review the tort law used in Taiwan and discuss the major economic factors that affect the patient's decision of filing a claim . Finally, I present descriptive evidence on characteristics of medical malpractice claims in Taiwan for the past four decades. The analytic resultsshow that the current system cannot effectively achieve the goals of deterrence and compensation because the probability of finding physicians' negligence is too low. Also, the operation of the current system has many sideeffects that may hurt the quality of medical care. Thus, the reform of current medical liability system is needed.