These same residents later have an opportunity to show my Law and Medicine seminar students how they work in their natural habitat. The next major step was when the director of Clinical Pathology Laboratories, a physician who has often testified as an expert witness, agreed to deliver a lecture to my Trial Advocacy class. After the lecture, he agreed to furnish pathology residents and staff physicians each year to testify as pathologists in Trial Advocacy workshops. He has continued to lecture to each Trial Advocacy class, and we have devoted one workshop session to the examination of forensic pathologists. The Law and Medicine Seminar is, on its face, a rather ordinary, two-credit law school elective.
Enrollment is limited to twelve students in their final semester of law school.
Each student is required to submit a paper for the final grade. There is no final examination. However, our course is unique in that it allows each student to share in the working experiences of physicians. These field trips give my students an appreciation of the practice of medicine that no amount of reading or discussion could achieve. The law student accompanies the resident, sitting in the room as the resident takes patient histories, performs physical examinations, and prescribes treatment.