RANT: Medical jurisprudence exams for medical license

[MacGyver]

Jesus christ, just when you thought that the lawyers grip on our balls couldnt get any tighter, now they force us to take this legal exam crap.

If its not the lawyer lobby who pushed it thru, then its sellout idiot doctors on the medical board.

Give me a code of ethics to sign or whatever, I got no problem with that. But I'm sitting here staring at a 300 page state legal code for doctors while trying to do this sample exam.

The real fun part is that the questions on this sample exam cant be found in one place in the legal book, you think you found the right section to answer the sample questions, and it turns out that section doesnt apply because it had some buried caveat such as "this regulation applies to group A, B, C, D, except in cases of X, Y, Z, in which case they fall under the jurisdiction of groups M, N, O, P as referenced in section 534:432-4324 (A)"

Here's a sample question:

"T or F: the medical board is required by law to send notification regarding renewal of licensure"

Easy question, right? Wrong, because there are no less than 4 sections in the gargantuan legal book regarding this question, and exactly ZERO of those sections give the answer to this question. It says the board "may" give out renewal notices, but nowhere does it say they are required by law to do so.

Then you've got all the BS scenario questions:

"If an applicant for licensure has a current active license in state X, had that license suspended for 6 months five years ago and was later reinstated, are they eligible for license?"

A question like that invokes no less than 5 sections of the legal code with at least a dozen cross references to outside documents you dont have access to.

**** the sellouts on the medical board who approved this lawyer nonsense.

RANT OVER

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[Faebinder]

Are you ranting about Texas Jurisprudance or is something more broad is being put into action? Got a link?

 

[docB]

Yes these hoops are onerous and useless but then they also do serve to waste time and accomplish nothing. Forcing doctors to try to read through hundreds of pages of legal code should be easy because we all took that mandatory course on statutes and regulatory law in med school. It's all fair though because the lawyers have to do that thing where they read the PIOPED study and have to answer questions about negative predictive value in PE before they can pass the bar.

 

[buckley]

I know it's such a pain studying for jurisprudence...I cursed it to hell also when I had to learn it for our national boards. BUT, interestingly enough, if this might be any form of consolation, a lot of the stuff I learned there actually came in handy during private practice.

Common sense things like how to politely refuse issuing a medical certificate without sounding like a prude, or how to defend yourself aaginst potential malpractice(i.e. text messsaging is admissible evidence in court--do not give anything other than "go to the ER asap.") Something like that.

It also keeps you on your toes, remind you not to drink and drive and do other foolish stuff lest you waste years of hard work that lead to you wanting to do that foolish stuff anyway! (hahaha!)

Curious me, where will you use this stuff? I don't remember any on the USMLE's. Sorry for being clueless.