Learn

Our Medicolegal Workshop is a great resource for all practising health professionals, regardless of your current career level. It explores your legal obligations as a health professional in all areas of clinical practice, and helps you to navigate pitfalls that are seen regularly in indemnity claims. We will examine and discuss specific clinical applications and case-studies to demonstrate how the medicolegal framework applies in our everyday practice. Most importantly, the workshop will help you to become a safer clinician with a more effective and ethical clinical practice.

This workshop is completely interactive and requires critical self-appraisal. Due to the sensitive nature of these discussions, the workshop is designed for a small group, so places are limited.

Pre/Post activity
Pre-activity MCQ Questionnaire to determine knowledge of medicolegal obligations. Post-activity discussion and tabling of actions, to reflect on ways clinical practice can be improved to increase patient safety and decrease medicolegal risk.

Small Group Learning Workshop
The day is divided up into 5 sessions, 2 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon.

Session 1: 8.30am – 10.00am Good Clinical Practice: Lessons from Medical Negligence We will explore the meaning of medical negligence: looking at negligence laws and what it means from a clinical perspective. Unlike the usual medicolegal lectures, where the emphasise can be on avoidance of litigation and defensive medicine, we are going to explore this topic from a clinician’s point of view, and how good ethical clinical practice is naturally a preventative measure against litigations. All of this is discussed with interesting landmark cases which established these laws and illustrated the application of the law to clinical scenarios. This workshop will show you how to improve your risk profile and become as safer health practitioner.  

Session 2: 10.30am – 12pm What is Consent? Function in Clinical Practice vs Requirements in Law What is a consent? What constitutes an adequate legal consent? How is this different to what we actually do in our clinical practice. We will explore the legal elements and the functions of a consent. We explore what constitutes an ‘adequate’ consent in the common law, using interesting landmark cases that have established these laws. There will be a discussion on capacity and alternative authorities for consent. We will look at what constitutes a good consent, both legally and medically, whilst navigating the practical issues in obtaining consent in today’s clinical practice.  

Session 3: 12.30pm – 1.15pm Rules of Engagement: Privacy Laws & Regulations in Medical Advertising & Social Media This session is a must for any AHPRA-regulated health profession who has a public profile, and engages in any form of media, from Instagram, Facebook, print advertising, to media commentary. Even if you are not involved with social media, this session has proven to be one of the most entertaining sessions with infamous cases where professional misconduct is an understatement, to how we can inadvertently cross the line in our daily social media interactions. The Australian legal framework for medical advertising is a lot more stringent than many other countries, and attempts to work around the ethical issues of commercialisation of medicine. This seminar looks at the legislations and regulations associated with Medical Advertising to ensure that your social media and marketing contents are not breaking the law. We will also do an overview of the privacy laws, exploring the pertinent legislations and regulations – what it means in clinical practice.  

Session 4: 1.20pm – 2.10pm Privacy Laws, Patient Charts & Documentation Documentation is the crux of medicolegal defence. This seminar covers not only what is good documentation, why it is important, and how can we do it so that it does not impede our clinical efficiency. In an overview of the privacy laws that governs our professional conduct and the way we store patient data, we will explore the pertinent legislations and regulations – what it means in clinical practice, who and how patient charts can be accessed.  

Session 5: 2.30pm – 3.45pm Complaint Handling: Who, What, When, Why and How Handling patient complaints can be stressful, hurtful, frustrating and demoralising. This session looks at both written and verbal complaints. We will provide a practical framework so that you can learn an effective way to construct a response, and minimise possible consequences of complaints.  

Your Facilitator:   Dr Lily Vrtik MHL FRACS MBBS Dr Lily Vrtik graduated from University of Western Australia in 1999. She undertook her surgical training in both WA and Queensland. She qualified as a specialist plastic surgeon in 2009. Apart from a busy private practice based in Brisbane’s northside, she also holds a public position at Princess Alexandra Hospital. Clinically, Lily subspecialises in breast surgery and cancer reconstructive surgery. As a reserve specialist in the Royal Australian Airforce, she also has had sub-specialty training in acute trauma, trauma reconstruction and burns surgery.  Lily has special interest in the medicolegal arena. She completed her Masters in Health Law at the prestigious University of Sydney (Sydney Law School) with a special interest in Bioethics, Medical Marketing and Health Professional Regulations. She currently holds a position in one of the major medical indemnity companies as both risk assessor and advisor, as well as provide independent reports on complex issues/practitioners for both public and private health regulatory bodies. Having spent most of her former life as a piano teacher before Medicine, Lily continues her enthusiasm for teaching. She is regularly involved in educational sessions from clinical topics, medicolegal seminars to life-skill workshops for all levels of health professionals. Her aim in education is to make learning material relevant as well as interesting, so that her audience walks away with the motivation to improve.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand the basis for good clinical practice
2. Understand what Consent is in both legal and clinical terms
3. Understand Advertising and Social Medical obligations as a health professional
4. Learn about the importance and essentials in clinical documentation and how this is the crux of any medicolegal defence as well as ensuring patient safety
5. Learn how to handle complaints, verbal and written, before it escalates to medicolegal claims. 

Details

This is a small-group learning activity, so places are limited. 

Disclaimer: Please note, once you click 'Register now' you will be leaving the AMA’s CPD Home website and entering a third-party education provider’s website. If you choose to register for this learning, you will need to provide some of your personal information directly to the third-party education provider. If you have any queries about how third-party education providers use, disclose or store your personal information you should consult their privacy policy.

Upon completion, your CPD activity record may take up to 4 weeks to be reflected on your CPD Home Dashboard.