Bond Doctors also Textbook Contributors

After teaching law to medical students for a number of years, Dr Kim Forrester and Dr Debra Griffiths identified an evident gap in the market and so began the development of their recently published textbook ‘Essentials of Law for Medical Practitioners’.

“Previously, there was only one Australian text which was directly relevant to the needs of medical students in relation to the legal knowledge they would need as medical students and junior medical practitioners” said Dr Kim Forrester.

As the book was intentionally focused on meeting the needs of the medical students, it was imperative that we sought input and comment from medical students as to what information to include and how to structure that information.

A call was put out to current Bond Medicine students interested in participating in this unique opportunity.

Two students, both whom have now graduated, Dr Edmond Kwan and Dr Katya Groeneveld agreed to assist Kim and Debra with their endeavour.

“Both students read several chapters of the book and independently gave very helpful content and structure evaluation and comment.

“Following the students’ written response I had lengthy interviews with them for the purpose of assisting me in my interpretation of their suggestions as to how the information should be set out to maximise the accessibility by medical students” said Kim.

This input was invaluable as the content is aimed at assisting and supporting the problem based method of learning now used in medical Schools across Australia.

Both students were acknowledged in the book for their contribution to the text.

Kim now plans to continue her academic work with the Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine’s Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery program.

“I constantly monitor and review the text in terms of the student’s learning needs and write a second edition in about 2 years making changes which meet the curriculum requirements” said Kim.

‘Essentials of Law for Medical Practitioners’ is now a prescribed text in the Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery Program at the Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine.