Legal aspects of laboratory medicine and pathology for residents and fellows: a curriculum for pathology training programs.

CONTEXT: Preparing residents and fellows to manage laboratories and pathology practices increasingly requires awareness of the law and a framework within which to manage legal risk in dealing with compliance, malpractice, and human resources issues.

OBJECTIVES: To describe a curriculum for pathology and laboratory medicine residents and fellows that highlights activities most likely to result in adverse legal outcomes and to help trainees understand when the services of an attorney may be required.

DESIGN: The 3-hour course evolved as part of a comprehensive leadership and management curriculum designed to help meet systems-based practice and professionalism requirements. Didactic lectures and interactive case scenarios were presented, and participants then evaluated the course content and speakers on a 5-point scale (5 = high). Short-term knowledge accumulation was assessed by comparison of performance on the laboratory administration section of the Resident In-Service Examination between junior residents who had not taken the course and senior residents who did take the course.

RESULTS: The course was evaluated by 72 trainees during a 5-year period (2004-2008); the mean overall rating was 4.6 (range, 3.5-5.0). Senior residents (n = 37) had a mean (SD) score on the Resident In-Service Examination laboratory administration section of 521 (67) for 2004 through 2008. Junior residents (n = 51), who had not yet completed the course, scored 470 (70) (P < .001) for the same period.

CONCLUSIONS: This curriculum met the needs of professionals entering careers in laboratory medicine and pathology and can be modified for other pathology and laboratory medicine training programs.