KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --
The 81st Medical Group held a mock deposition for its Graduate Medical Education program Dec. 13, at the Don Wiley Auditorium.
The mock deposition is a new addition to the GME program that allows future Air Force doctors to experience what it would be like to be a subject matter expert for a medical related court case.
“This event focused on medical malpractice and when lawyers examine subject matter experts within the medical career field for court cases,” said Capt. Erik Fuqua, Air Force Legal Operations Agency medical law consultant. “The deposition allows attorneys to ask questions to subject matter experts before the actual trial begins.”
Five attorneys from the Jackson, Mississippi U.S. Attorney’s Office participated in the event to give the GME students a better glimpse into how the deposition process works.
The GME program leadership plans to incorporate more mock depositions into their training curriculum specific to each medical specialty taught at the Keesler Medical Center. The program addition will show the students how they can apply their medical specialty to a deposition.
“As medical professionals, you don’t always get this part,” said Col. Rita DuBoyce, 81st Medical Group director of graduate medical education and designated institutional official. “Everything has been thrown at you when it comes to the science part of medicine.”
According to DuBoyce, the medical students not only learned about how depositions work but also the importance of documentation within the medical career field.
“This shows them the importance of documentation and communication with patients and the legal ramifications that can happen is something goes wrong,” said DuBoyce. “One of the students even said the mock deposition has made him change the way he practices medicine because some of the things he saw in the case are considered bad habits and now he has seen the legal consequences from it.”