A bill currently awaiting action in the Arizona state Senate would prevent patients injured by medical students from being able to sue them. If the bill passes, students under the supervision of a licensed health care professional would not be liable for malpractice unless there was clear and convincing evidence that the student acted with gross negligence.

As with many proposed legislative bills, the proposal sounds like a solution in search of a problem. It's not clear that medical students EVER get sued for malpractice, and even if they were, the logical person to hold accountable would be the supervising physician who failed to oversee the student's conduct. But legal immunity is always a slippery concept, because one ambiguity in this bill is whether ANYONE would be liable if the student hurt someone.