State licensing boards, hospitals and medical groups are assigning continuing medical education courses to prevent doctor misconduct that can lead to medical malpractice claims or license discipline. According to amednews.com, CME courses help doctors learn from errors such as prescribing medications to friends and family members who are not patients. Other CME courses address physician-patient communication, anger management and recordkeeping mistakes.
Medical groups advocate expanding CME as a preventive, voluntary tool to teach doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. For example, courses on recordkeeping teach physicians to keep notes on patient visits so they have a record if their clinical judgment and treatment methods are at issue. The news article reports the NC medical board is seeing more record violations with increased electronic medical records use.
In North Carolina, recordkeeping and improper prescribing violations are often linked. About half of the recordkeeping violations the North Carolina board handles involve improper prescribing of controlled substances. However, rarely does a physician maliciously violate prescribing rules.
Prescribing courses focus on rules governing prescribing. For instance, doctors cannot prescribe for someone they have not examined as a patient. Physicians often get in trouble for prescribing for a friend, family member, or colleague. Physicians are required to screen patients for drug-seeking behaviors.
If you or a loved one suffers an injury due to improper medical care in North Carolina, hold NC medical professionals accountable with the help of a North Carolina medical malpractice attorney. To learn more about what to you or a loved one can recover in a medical negligence lawsuit, check out our case results.
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