Page 26 - Anatomy of a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

SVMIC Anatomy of a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

Experienced plaintiffs’ medical malpractice attorneys have little

difficulty finding an expert to support their clients’ positions.
There are a great number of physicians willing to testify

against their colleagues for compensation. Some of these

“experts” earn more income annually testifying in malpractice
cases than they do practicing medicine. They typically are from

a community outside the location where the defendant
practices and they claim to acquire their knowledge of the

standard of care in the forum community by researching the

data on that medical community and/or by practicing in a
similar medical community.

The determination

as to whether an
expert is competent

to testify in a given
case is governed by

the rules we

discussed earlier.
Generally, if the

proposed expert

meets all of the
criteria set forth in

the rules and claims
to be familiar with

the applicable standard of care, he or she will be allowed to
testify. In addition, the trial judge is granted certain discretion

in deciding whether or not an expert is competent. For

example, what if a general practitioner is offered as an expert
to prove the standard of care for a specialist such as a surgeon

or OB/GYN? In both of these hypotheticals, trial judges have

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