To explore the real benefits of teamwork as it applies to patient safety and the means by which effective teams can be trained through the MedTeams program cu rrently used in both civilian and military emergency departments.  To review the rules of engagement for U.S. military medicine, particularly as applied to the Law of Armed Conflict.  To learn the means by which experts at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology identified victims of the recent terrorist attack on the Pentagon. To highlight the MedMARx medication error reporting program and demonstrate how it can enable individual medical facilities to learn from the mistakes of others.  To familiarize the medical practitioner with several different types of trocars and the liability risks associated with each of them.  To determine the reasons why errors may not be reported in a patient safety program and to discuss how this cultural mindset can be overcome.

Views expressed in this course are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the military services, or the Department of Defense.  Legal Medicine offers medicolegal education for health care providers and does not establish policy or define a standard of care.  This course gives no specific recommendations concerning patient diagnosis or treatment, but instead is designed to highlight problem areas of liability in medical practice and facilitate risk management efforts.  If legal advice is required, it should be obtained from appropriate military or other federal legal counsel or from a civilian professional for non-federal physicians.