# 医師法 / Medical Practitioners' Act — 第二十条 (Article 20) - Law: 医師法 (Medical Practitioners' Act), 昭和二十三年法律第二百一号 - English title "Medical Practitioners' Act": Ministry of Justice translation - Kind: Act — the distinction between 法律 (Act), 政令 (Cabinet Order), 省令 (Ministerial Order) and 条例 (local ordinance) decides who may issue it and what it may say. - Provision: 第二十条 (Article 20) — address `art-20` - Text in force since: 2026-05-21 - URL (the page that opens at this provision): https://japanlaw.org/ja/medical-practitioners-act/art-20 - Permanent URL (e-Gov law ID, never renamed): https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-20 - Every provision below carries its address and both URLs on the line under it. - Japanese text: e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁). English: as marked on each line below. Only the Japanese as published by the government has legal effect; the text below is a copy of it. Every English rendering below is a translation and says which kind: the Ministry of Justice's translation, or this site's machine translation, whose model and date the Sources list names. They are never merged and never substituted for one another. --- ### 第二十条 art-20 · https://japanlaw.org/ja/medical-practitioners-act/art-20 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-20 **第一項** 医師は、自ら診察しないで治療をし、若しくは診断書若しくは処方せんを交付し、自ら出産に立ち会わないで出生証明書若しくは死産証書を交付し、又は自ら検案をしないで検案書を交付してはならない。但し、診療中の患者が受診後二十四時間以内に死亡した場合に交付する死亡診断書については、この限りでない。 art-20/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/ja/medical-practitioners-act/art-20/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-20/par-1 No medical practitioner may provide medical treatment or issue a medical certificate or prescription without personally performing a medical examination, nor issue a birth certificate or certificate of stillbirth without personally being in attendance at the birth, nor issue a certificate of post mortem examination without personally performing the fact examination; provided, however, that this does not apply to a death certificate that has been issued where a patient undergoing medical care has died within 24 hours of the medical examination. Ministry of Justice translation — Japanese Law Translation Database System ## Cited by 1 provision cites this one. No official source publishes this direction. - 医師法 第三十三条の三第一項第一号 — https://japanlaw.org/ja/medical-practitioners-act/art-33-3/par-1/item-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-33-3/par-1/item-1 --- ## Sources - e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁) — 医師法 — the text in force from 2026-05-21 (https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/323AC0000000201/20260521_505AC0000000063), retrieved 2026-10-09 - Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Medical Practitioners' Act — Ministry of Justice translation (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3992/tb), retrieved 2026-10-09 - This site's parser, version 165 — 医師法 — structure, counts, cross-references and defined terms, computed 2026-10-09