To acquaint the reader with important patient safety initiatives and error reporting systems.  To understand the ethical and legal basis for the Department of Defense's new Military Health System patient Safety Program.  To learn about Medical Team Management and how it has helped prevent medical errors at Eglin Air Force Base.  To review the history and current state of medical litigation involving HDC with transplant as an option for treating breast cancer.  To explore the medical advances and moral issues arising from controversial fetal tissue and stem cell research.  To consider medical uses of genetic data as well as privacy and discrimination issues.

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.