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CMECNECPE

You’ve Been Served! Part One

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Learning Objectives and CME/Disclosure Information

This activity is intended for healthcare providers delivering care to women and their families.

After completing this activity, the participant should be better able to:

1. Define a tort
2. List the elements of a medical malpractice tort

Estimated time to complete activity: 0.25 hours

Faculty:

Susan J. Gross, MD, FRCSC, FACOG, FACMG
President and CEO, The ObG Project

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

Postgraduate Institute for Medicine (PIM) requires faculty, planners, and others in control of educational content to disclose all their financial relationships with ineligible companies. All identified conflicts of interest (COI) are thoroughly vetted and mitigated according to PIM policy. PIM is committed to providing its learners with high quality accredited continuing education activities and related materials that promote improvements or quality in healthcare and not a specific proprietary business interest of an ineligible company.

The PIM planners and others have nothing to disclose. The OBG Project planners and others have nothing to disclose.

Faculty: Susan J. Gross, MD, receives consulting fees from Cradle Genomics, and has financial interest in The ObG Project, Inc.

Planners and Managers: The PIM planners and managers, Trace Hutchison, PharmD, Samantha Mattiucci, PharmD, CHCP, Judi Smelker-Mitchek, MBA, MSN, RN, and Jan Schultz, MSN, RN, CHCP have nothing to disclose.

Method of Participation and Request for Credit

Fees for participating and receiving CME credit for this activity are as posted on The ObG Project website. During the period from Dec 31 2017 through Jan 25 2023, participants must read the learning objectives and faculty disclosures and study the educational activity.

If you wish to receive acknowledgment for completing this activity, please complete the post-test and evaluation. Upon registering and successfully completing the post-test with a score of 100% and the activity evaluation, your certificate will be made available immediately.

For Pharmacists: Upon successfully completing the post-test with a score of 100% and the activity evaluation form, transcript information will be sent to the NABP CPE Monitor Service within 4 weeks.

Joint Accreditation Statement

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the Postgraduate Institute for Medicine and The ObG Project. Postgraduate Institute for Medicine is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Physician Continuing Medical Education

Postgraduate Institute for Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of 0.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Continuing Pharmacy Education

Postgraduate Institute for Medicine designates this continuing education activity for 0.2 contact hour(s) (0.2 CEUs) of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. (Universal Activity Number – 0809-9999-17-862-H03-P)

Type of Activity: Knowledge

Continuing Nursing Education

The maximum number of hours awarded for this Continuing Nursing Education activity is 0.2 contact hours.

Read Disclaimer & Fine Print

Part One  |  Part Two | Part Three |  Part Four

Picture this: A healthcare provider is having office hours. The next patient who enters the consultation room asks the healthcare provider “Are you Jane Doe?” to which the provider answers “yes”. The patient proceeds to present a large envelope to the provider and says “You’ve been served!” The healthcare provider groans mightily and collapses in shock. This scenario has been exaggerated and is more indicative of a movie set than real life, but every day healthcare providers and institutions across the nation are being served with summonses and complaints. In a private practice, it is likely going to be the doctor or front desk staff who is served. Physically handing the legal papers to the practitioner is not an absolute must. Leaving court papers at the practitioner’s office with a competent adult can be enough. Institutions might have a designated person to accept service on their behalf and their employees who are named in the suit.

Every case is different, but one can say with certainty that being served does not mean you were negligent or that you did not in fact provide excellent care. What it does mean is that you are now on notice that you are being sued for medical malpractice. Being ‘served’ is actually a technical process that confers jurisdiction (power or authority) over both parties so that the court may hear the case.

This is a multi-part series that will define common legal terms and give a general overview of the anatomy of medical malpractice litigation. The information will not be specific to any state laws unless otherwise indicated. At numerous points, there will be reminders that the following posts are informational only and that just like seeking out the right specialist for a surgical procedure, a competent medical malpractice defense lawyer is the best way to protect your reputation and interests. However, having some basic legal concepts in hand will help provide you with some element of control over the process.

To begin this educational series, let’s start with the most basic concept of all – ‘medical malpractice’ itself, which falls under the umbrella of tort law.

WHAT IS A TORT?

A tort is an act that injures someone in some way. It consists of four elements or requirements:

  • Duty – a legally enforceable obligation to provide to a particular standard of medical care
  • Breach of the duty – the defendant did not provide that particular standard of medical care
  • Causation – the breach was the cause of an injury to the patient
  • Injury – there must be an injury such as a baby born with a birth defect, more extensive medical treatment for a delayed diagnosis, loss of limb, emotional distress, or death

HOW DOES A LAWSUIT BEGIN?

For a lawsuit to begin, the plaintiff or injured person files a complaint. The complaint identifies the defendants or parties who are alleged to have committed the medical harm.  When any of the defendants are unknown, they are listed as John Doe or Jane Doe. The complaint also describes the injuries the plaintiff allegedly suffered. The plaintiff also asks for a judgment in her favor. A judgment can consist of a demand for compensation for pain and suffering, lost income, future lost income, shortened lifespan, and payment for future medical treatment among other things. In some states, a specific amount of money will be requested as damages.
How the defendant responds to the Complaint will be discussed in Part 2.

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Related ObG Topics:

Practice management info for your women's healthcare practice
You’ve Been Served! Part Two: Next Steps After Getting Court Papers
You’ve Been Served! Part Three: Intro to the Deposition
You’ve Been Served, Part Four: An ObGyn Defendant Wins the Case – Guidelines Matter 

Legal Disclaimer Click To Expand

This website (the “Website”) is a service made available by The ObG Project LLC, its partners, affiliates or subsidiaries (“Provider”). This Website provides general information related to the law and is designed to help users safely cope with their own legal needs. This website does not provide legal advice and Provider is not a law firm. None of our customer service representatives are lawyers and they also do not provide legal advice. Although we go to great lengths to make sure our information is accurate and useful, we recommend you consult a lawyer if you want legal advice. No attorney-client or confidential relationship exists or will be formed between you and Provider or any of our representatives.
This website is not intended to be a source for legal advice, and thus the reader should not rely on any information provided in this website as such. Readers should not consider the information provided to be an invitation for an attorney-client relationship, and should always seek the advice of competent counsel in the reader’s home jurisdiction. Provider may provide links to third party websites. These links are provided only as a convenience. Linked websites are not reviewed, controlled or examined by Provider and Provider is not responsible for the information, advertising, products, resources or other materials, of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by Provider. In addition, please be aware that your use of any linked site is subject to the terms and conditions applicable to that site. Please direct any questions regarding linked sites to the webmaster of that site.

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OBG Project CME requires a modern web browser (Internet Explorer 10+, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge). Certain educational activities may require additional software to view multimedia, presentation, or printable versions of their content. These activities will be marked as such and will provide links to the required software. That software may be: Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft PowerPoint, Windows Media Player, or Real Networks Real One Player.

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA. The planners of this activity do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications.

The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners. Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.

Disclaimer

Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development. The information
presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management. Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient’s conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer’s product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.

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