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2003 SESSION
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That § 54.1-2961 of the Code of Virginia is amended and reenacted as follows:
§ 54.1-2961. Interns and residents in hospitals.
A. Interns and residents holding temporary licenses may be employed in a legally established and licensed hospital, medical school or other organization operating an approved graduate medical education program when their practice is confined to persons who are bona fide patients within the hospital or other organization or who receive treatment and advice in an outpatient department of the hospital or an institution affiliated with the graduate medical education program.
B. Such intern or resident shall be responsible and accountable at all times to a licensed member of the staff. The training of interns and residents shall be consistent with the requirements of the agencies cited in subsection D and the policies and procedures of the hospital, medical school or other organization operating a graduate medical education program. No intern or resident holding a temporary license may be employed by any hospital or other organization operating an approved graduate medical education program unless he has completed successfully the preliminary academic education required for admission to examinations given by the Board in his particular field of practice.
C. No intern or resident holding a temporary license shall serve in any hospital or other organization operating an approved graduate medical education program in this Commonwealth for longer than the time prescribed by the graduate medical education program. The Board may prescribe regulations not in conflict with existing law and require such reports from hospitals or other organizations in the Commonwealth as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this section.
D. Such employment shall be a part of an internship or residency training program approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or American Osteopathic Association or American Podiatric Medical Association or Council on Chiropractic Education. No unlicensed intern or resident may be employed as an intern or resident by any hospital or other organization operating an approved graduate medical education program. The Board may determine the extent and scope of the duties and professional services which may be rendered by interns and residents.
E. The Board of Medicine shall adopt guidelines concerning the ethical practice
of physicians practicing in emergency rooms, surgeons, and surgery interns and
residents practicing in hospitals, particularly hospital emergency rooms, or
other organizations operating graduate medical education programs. These
guidelines shall not be construed to be or to establish standards of care or to
be regulations and shall be exempt from the requirements of the Administrative
Process Act (§ 2.2-4000 et seq.). The Medical College of Virginia of Virginia
Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and the
Eastern Virginia Medical School, the Medical Society of Virginia, and the
Virginia Hospital and Health Care Association shall cooperate with the Board in
the development of these guidelines.
The guidelines shall include, but need not be limited to (i) the obtaining of
informed consent from all patients or from the next of kin or legally
authorized representative, to the extent practical under the circumstances in which
medical care is being rendered, when the patient is incapable of making an
informed decision, after such patients are or other persons have been informed
as to which surgeons physicians, residents, or interns will perform the surgery
or other invasive procedure; (ii) except in emergencies and other unavoidable
situations, the need, consistent with the informed consent, for a surgeon an
attending physician to be present during the surgery or other invasive
procedure; and (iii) policies to avoid situations, unless the
circumstances fall within an exception in the Board's guidelines or the policies of the
relevant hospital, medical school or other organization operating the graduate medical
education program, in which a surgeon, intern or resident represents that he
will perform a surgery or other invasive procedure which that he then fails to
perform; and (iv) policies addressing informed consent and the ethics of
appropriate care of patients in emergency rooms. Such policies shall take into
consideration the nonbinding ban developed by the American Medical Association
in 2000 on using newly dead patients as training subjects without the consent
of the next of kin or other legal representative to extent practical under the
circumstances in which medical care is being rendered.
F. The Board shall publish and distribute the guidelines required by subsection E to its licensees.