Watch a therapist get sued: A medicolegal interprofessional simulation on rehabilitation therapy documentation

Health science educators are charged with the responsibility to teach paper and electronic medical documentation to include accuracy of documentation aligned with standards of practice and ethical principles. Characteristically, ethical principles are taught in discipline-specific curriculum. This article describes an interprofessional education (IPE) medicolegal simulation-based learning activity designed for and implemented with occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) graduate students. Activities included watching a simulated student OT and PT co-treatment vignette, reviewing student documentation in a simulated medical chart that was co-signed by the simulated clinical supervisors, observing a live deposition with the simulated clinical supervisors by legal representation, and debriefing the simulation focusing on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative Core Competency Domain: Values and Ethics. 1 The learning objectives for this simulation were for students to better understand the values and ethics of professional written and verbal communication and to be able to explain the significance of accurate medical documentation for safe and effective delivery of patient care. A reflective assignment for students to expand on their IPE experience was used to assess students. Most students provided insightful perspectives and authentic comments demonstrating a better understanding of standards of ethical conduct through written documentation. This article will provide the means to integrate an immersive medicolegal IPE simulation, focusing on the importance of medical documentation that can be modeled in respective educational and clinical programs.