Medical Expert Witnesses
Sonny Cejic
Western University
Stella Atkins
Simon Fraser University
Medicine is broad. There is no one medical expert to answer all questions or deal with any single medical problem. For this reason medical experts are selected based on specific skills and qualifications.
Related to court cases common areas where medical expertise is called upon include cardiology, dermatology, toxicology, family medicine, gastrointestinal surgery, preventive medicine, radiology, oncology, otolaryngology, dentistry, pediatrics, urology, gynecology and psychiatry.
The list is long given the complexity of human health and given that any of these areas can be part of litigation before the courts.
Medical experts can be recruited to provide expert advice on common issues such as medical malpractice, operational errors, drug misuse or other areas of medical failure. It takes the right expert to distinguish between areas such as an accidental error versus a deliberate act or unforeseen drug side effects.
Given the complexity of drug reactions and the difficulty to determine if it was the drug that caused the problem, anything related to pharmaceuticals is an area that ends up in court more often and calls upon medical experts. To a lesser extent, court cases involving medical devices hire medical experts to help determine the facts of a case.