Rounds Series 208: Surgery

Risk Management Rounds: Surgery
5 CME Category One Credits toward AMA Physician's Recognition Award

Information

The need for the program was determined from comments from previous seminar participants and from malpractice insurers' statistics.

Goals

In this course, we will use a number of resources to explore liability issues facing surgeons. We will examine actual case law decisions from medical malpractice trials that have established the precedents by which similar claims are to be judged. We will review sections of the AMA's Code of Ethics, look at unpublished claims histories from the files of malpractice insurers and review claims data and analysis reports compiled by malpractice insurers.

Objectives

When you complete this course you should be able to:

1. Discuss how communication with patients can help improve patient care and prevent lawsuits.
2. Apply principles of informed consent, implied consent, and informed refusal in a variety of clinical situations.
3. Recognize and avoid situations, such as 'ghost surgery' that violate informed consent.
4. Understand how surgical and medical record documentation and maintenance affects litigation and patient safety.
5. Understand how the courts define a surgeon's duty in a variety of patient care situations.
6. Understand the importance of peer review, and how to participate in the process without needlessly increasing your own legal exposure.

Target Audience

Risk Management Rounds: Surgery has been to address malpractice issues that are unique to surgical specialists. Therefore, it is necessarily assumed that you are already well acquainted with the basics of risk management as they apply in the practice of medicine in general. If not, we suggest you take a general course in risk management.

Faculty

This seminar was authored by Rosemary Gafner, Ed.D.

CME Information

This seminar is provided in partnership with Medical Risk Management Inc.

Medical Risk Management, Inc. is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing education to physicians. Medical Risk Management, Inc. designates this continuing education activity for a maximum of 5 Category 1 credit(s) toward the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those credits that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.

This activity was planned and produced in accordance with the ACCME Standards for Enduring Materials.

Physicians who satisfactorily complete this seminar with a score of 80% or better will receive a certificate of completion that will document their participation in this program.

Required Time

Estimated study time: 5.5 hours
Estimated testing time: 30 minutes

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