The 11th Annual Multispecialty Conference on Medical Negligence and Risk Management in Medicine, Surgery, Emergency Medicine, Radiology, & Family Medicine

The 11th Annual Multispecialty Conference on Medical Negligence and Risk Management in Medicine, Surgery, Emergency Medicine, Radiology, & Family Medicine
January 5 – 8, 2011
Fairmont Kea Lani Suites, Maui, Hawaii

To err is human, and hence, forgivable, until it is you or a loved one that is irreparably harmed by medical error. Instantaneous thoughts, like lightning, seek to pinpoint fault and culpability. Pause a moment and reflect on the fact that wrong-side or site surgeries are performed in about 4,000 cases annually in the U.S. alone. About 100,000 deaths annually occur from health-care associated infections, most being preventable! The focus on system-errors has taken front and center place, as the need to implement changes have become self-evident. Such changes have included the development of checklists and computer-driven and checked orders (no incorrectly written and read prescriptions or incorrect doses). Insufficient attention has, however, been paid to personal physician accountability and to the need for appropriate disciplinary action. The medical establishment has long recognized that while most of us become occasional defendants, a relative few become incorrigible offenders who unabashedly continue to practice medicine.

Notwithstanding the obvious “scientific” importance of checklists and systems, the practice of medicine is also an art, requiring knowledge and skills far beyond the installation of organized systems. It is the personal skills that make the compleat physician and which endow the qualities of sound reasoning and clinical judgment. These are not easily acquired and their absence may be evident in recurring litigation.

Beyond individual failure are a myriad number of factors that singly or together compound the likelihood of legal claims. These failures include a lack of documentation, communication errors and misplaced reliance on others (partners, nurses, residents, and office staff).

These two multispecialty conferences bring into sharp focus new and established guidelines and standards of care, issues of competence, new advances, and ethics. The first conference concentrates on pregnancy, its management and outcome, while the interdigitating and overlapping second conference takes up discussion along similar themes, but in multiple specialties.

The goal of this activity is to address the following knowledge gaps:
Teach healthcare professionals to better comprehend the machinations of negligence law, and to develop a more complete awareness of the need for anticipatory and safety practice.
Teach legal professionals about the complex issues encountered in the practice of medicine, including the intricacies of decision-making, aiming to sharpen their understanding on behalf of their clients, both plaintiff and defense.

Only through a thorough understanding of the challenges physicians face and recognition of the critical role lawyers have in influencing medical practice and how hospitals function, can we hope to deal effectively with the continuing pressures of medical practice.

At the conclusion of this conference, healthcare professionals will be able to articulate the role of law and lawyers in medical malpractice cases and discuss the complexities of the legal process.

At the conclusion of this conference, legal professionals will be able to describe the best-evidence in medical practice as it pertains to obstetrics, gynecology, midwifery, neonatology, medicine, surgery, family medicine, emergency medicine, cardiology, radiology and human genetics.

Once again, an extraordinarily experienced and superb faculty has been assembled for these 27th and 11th anniversary conferences that will be important to all the specialties mentioned including nurse practitioners, trial attorneys, pediatricians, primary care physicians, insurers, risk managers and all providers of healthcare.