Resident education resources

Access a set of tailored resources to help you learn key medico-legal principles that are essential for residency training and to enhance patient safety.

Note: These curated resources are also applicable to all members and are accessible throughout the website.

Top resources

Looking to get a quick start on learning about medico-legal essentials? These resources will help you get started.

Patient Safety Primer

A free, virtual workshop that covers medico-legal essentials for residents

FAQ: Residents and residency

Get answers to some of your top CMPA-related questions

Teaching Patient Safety Fundamentals

A free, virtual workshop for those who teach or supervise residents

Explore all learning resources

To help you easily access resources, we’ve organized our content according to the resident learning journey.

Have a specific medico-legal topic you’d like to cover with your residents? CMPA offers tailored educational sessions at no cost. Request an education session.

Foundational learning resources

Workshop

• Patient Safety Primer: medico-legal essentials for residents

Core learning resources

Professionalism and ethics

Integrating professional duties, societal expectations and personal wellbeing

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Workshop

• Patient Safety Primer: medico-legal essentials for residents

eLearning

• Privacy and confidentiality

Good practices

• Privacy and confidentiality: guidance and checklists

Physician-patient

Communicating effectively with patients to optimize their care

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Workshops

• Successful patient interactions
• Patient Safety Primer: medico-legal essentials for residents
• Clinical communication program

eLearning

• Disclosing harm from healthcare delivery
• Documentation
• Informed consent
• Medical letters, forms and reports
• Emergency medicine: Optimizing your documentation

Webinars

• Challenging clinical encounters and practical management strategies
• Providing safe virtual care
• Providing safe virtual care: a deeper dive
• Informed consent and capacity assessments for patient-centered care

Good practices

• Informed consent
• Documentation and record keeping

Articles

• Disclosing harm from healthcare delivery: Open and honest communication with patients
• Checklist - Disclosure of harm [PDF]
• Helping patients make informed decisions
• Checklist – Informed Consent [PDF]
• Writing with care: Word choice matters in medical records and reports

Physician-team

Leveraging the power of collaboration to foster safe care

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Workshop

• Effective team interactions

eLearning

• Speaking up
• Safe to speak – Foster a culture of psychological safety in healthcare teams
• Delegation and supervision
• Improving patient safety: Enhancing situational awareness for healthcare professionals

Webinars

• The power of teamwork

Good practices

• Collaborative care
• Team communication
• Situational awareness
• Psychological safety
• Delegation and supervision of trainees

Videos

• Hospital handover by resident
• Just A Routine Operation

The healthcare system

Building safer systems to enhance clinical care delivery

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Workshop

• Test results follow-up

eLearning

• Effective communication: The key to creating reciprocal partnerships

Webinars

• Navigating AI in healthcare

Good practices

• Human factors
• Just culture
• Medication safety
• Wait times when resources are limited

Articles

• Reflections on human factors
• Reflections on managing risk
• Exploring medication risks
• Misdiagnosis in the Emergency Department
• A fall in the bathtub
• A quick diagnosis

Medico-legal matters

Understanding and responding to medico-legal challenges

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Workshops

• Patient Safety Primer: medico-legal essentials for residents
• Test results follow-up
• Clinical communication program

eLearning

• Anatomy of a lawsuit
• Negligence and civil liability

Webinars / Podcast

• CMPA: Practically Speaking Podcast

Good practices

• Duty to report
• Duty of care

Articles

• Residents and resiliency
• FAQ: Residents and residency
• College complaints against resident physicians in Canada: a retrospective analysis of Canadian Medical Protective Association data from 2013 to 2017, CMAJ Open [PDF]

Transition to practice learning resources

Teaching resources

• CMPA Teaching resources
• Teaching patient safety fundamentals: A workshop for medical educators

Additional learning resources

Looking for medico-legal help? We are here for you. Get help and advice.