Word.ws English Dictionary

defensive medicine

defensive medicine noun: the practice of recommending a diagnostic test or medical treatment that is not necessarily the best option for the patient, but mainly serves to protect the physician against a potential malpractice lawsuit from the patient.

Noun

defensive medicine (uncountable)

  1. The practice of recommending a diagnostic test or medical treatment that is not necessarily the best option for the patient, but mainly serves to protect the physician against a potential malpractice lawsuit from the patient.

Questions about defensive medicine

What does defensive medicine mean?
Defensive medicine means the practice of recommending a diagnostic test or medical treatment that is not necessarily the best option for the patient, but mainly serves to protect the physician against a potential malpractice lawsuit from the patient.
What part of speech is defensive medicine?
Defensive medicine is a noun.

Words near defensive medicine in the dictionary

  1. defensive line of scrimmage
  2. defensive lineman
  3. defensive linemen
  4. defensive lines
  5. defensive lines of scrimmage
  6. defensive medicine
  7. defensive midfielder
  8. defensive midfielders
  9. defensive programming
  10. defensive spiral
  11. defensive spirals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: defensive medicine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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