Chapter 31 - Legal landmines and lifeboats: Understanding legal risk in emergency medicine

Alex and Venk talk through the medicolegal aspects of practicing emergency medicine with emergency physician and attorney, Dr. Rachel Lindor. She is previous chair of research for Mayo Clinic Emergency Medicine in Scottsdale Arizona and holds both MD & JD degrees. She outlines how the most commonly litigated conditions (MI, orthopedics etc) still only accounts for about 1/5 of medicolegal cases in the United States and the importance of certain key behaviors in our practice to maintaining legal safety. Check it out!

CONTACTS

X - @AlwaysOnEM; @VenkBellamkonda

YouTube - @AlwaysOnEM; @VenkBellamkonda

Instagram – @AlwaysOnEM; @Venk_like_vancomycin; @ASFinch

Email - AlwaysOnEM@gmail.com

REFERENCES & LINKS

• Heaton HA, Campbell RL, Thompson KM, Sadosty AT. In support of the medical apology: the nonlegal arguments. Journal of Emergency Medicine 2016. 51(5)605-609
• Gallagher TH, Waterman AD, Ebers AG, Fraser VJ, Levinson W. Patients’ and Physicians’ attitudes regarding the disclosure of medical errors. JAMA 2003;289:1001-7
• Carlson JN, et al. Provider and Practice Factors associated with emergency physicians being named in a malpractice claim. Ann Emerg Med. 2018;71:157-164
• Sachs. Malpractice claims: It’s a crapshoot-Time to stop the self-blame and ask different questions. Ann Emerg Med. 2018;71(2):165-167
• Weinstock & Jolliff.  High-Risk Medicolegal Conditions in Pediatric Emergency Medicine. Emerg Med Clin N Am. 39(2021) 479-491
• Selbst, et al. Epidemiology and etiology of malpractice lawsuits involving children in US emergency departments and urgent care centers.  Pediatr. Emerg Care. 2005 Mar;21(3):165-9
• Wong, et al. Emergency Department and Urgent Care Malpractice Claims 2001-2015. West JEM. 2021. 22(2): 333-8