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R E C O G N I Z E D F O R C R E AT I N G POSITIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCES through distance and online education, a team of University of Louisville faculty earned the 2021 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Teaching and Learning.
Brandeis Law’s Jamie Abrams and UofL School of Dentistry’s Valerie Harris and Marija Sasek worked together to design a law-dentistry medical malpractice expert witness deposition simulation for law and dental students. Work to develop the project began several years ago, and the team launched the simulation while Abrams was a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore in Fall 2020. University of Baltimore law students and University of Louisville dental students spent one month in their respective courses preparing for the simulation. Law students studied negligence, products liability and lawyering skills to prepare to take and defend the depositions of medical experts – the dental students. Dental students studied dentistry standards of care, patient care ethics and practice management to prepare to
testify as dueling expert witnesses for the plaintiff or the defendant in the civil lawsuit. “BY ROLE PLAYING AS PROFESSIONALS I N ST E A D O F ST U D E N TS , I T B U I LT A STRONGER PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY, PRIDE AND CAMARADERIE IN THE RESPECTIVE DISCIPLINES.” -PROFESSOR JAMIE ABRAMS In October 2020, the groups convened via Zoom for a live deposition simulation that included participants from multiple cities, universities and departments. A second virtual dental-law simulation including all first-year UofL law students and fourth year UofL dental students – about 250 people – took place in October 2021. In the simulation, students spilt into a dozen deposition groups, each containing upper-level mentors, faculty observers and UofL School of Law alumni facilitators. The students conducted the deposition and the expert witnesses for both sides presented their affirmative testimony and then were subject to cross examination by the opposing side.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR FROM PROF. ABRAMS ABOUT THIS AWARD
More than 200 people participated in the law-dentistry medical malpractice expert witness deposition simulation.
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