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"Inexpert" Witness Loses License |
When a physician gets hit with a medical malpractice lawsuit, he or she feels like they’re at the mercy of the courts and plaintiff attorneys. Adding insult to injury, the legal case against any physician, regardless of merit, relies on the testimony of physician expert witnesses.
Complaints against physician “hired guns” who provide expert witness testimony on behalf of plaintiff attorneys abound. Now, however, some medical organizations have set their sights on expert witnesses who give testimony that is false, misleading, or a misrepresentation of the current standard of care.
Expert witness testimony about medical issues must be given with the same professionalism and standards of the practice of medicine itself. One medical society in particular, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, (AANS) has developed expert witness guidelines (for both plaintiff and defense experts) as well as peer review procedures for when an expert witness is accused of unprofessional conduct.
The AANS’s new guidelines proved their effectiveness when they successfully defended against a legal challenge by a member who had been subjected to a peer review hearing and temporary suspension for providing “negligent” expert witness testimony during a medical malpractice trial (Austin vs. AANS).
Now, the ante has been upped even further: this past July, the North Carolina Medical Board revoked the license of a Florida neurosurgeon testifying for a plaintiff at trial. According to the Board, Gary Lustgarten, M.D. gave misleading testimony on behalf of the plaintiff and the appropriate standard of care – all in a state where giving expert medical testimony is technically considered practicing medicine. As a result, the North Carolina Medical Board revoked his license to practice medicine in that state.
Of course, state medical boards and professional organizations aren’t out to punish providers of scientifically accurate testimony. After all, every successful defense requires expert witnesses as well. ISMIE Mutual consults with the most reputable medical experts to testify on behalf of ISMIE insureds, and that’s one of the reasons why ISMIE’s success rate is over 70%.
Plaintiff attorneys cringe when they know they have to go up against ISMIE, and we plan to keep it that way. ISMIE has been, and continues to be, vigilant when it comes to monitoring the testimony of expert witnesses working on the behalf of plaintiff attorneys. ISMIE will not hesitate to notify the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation regarding physicians who provide inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise unsound medical testimony against ISMIE insureds.
Now that other agencies and professional organizations are beginning to scrutinize physicians who testify against other physicians in court, one has to wonder if plaintiff attorneys will have a harder time filing lawsuits of dubious merit in the future. As an insurance company committed to
aggressively defending physician insureds against all non-meritorious lawsuits, ISMIE Mutual hopes that a positive trend has truly begun.