The Medical Expert Witness in Malpractice Suits

Abstract

To the Editor.— I have just finished reading Dr Paul C. Bucy's article (232:1352, 1975) and find it well done. However, it seems to me that he was too cautious concerning the physician's duty to testify as an expert against another physician when the issue is malpractice. We proudly consider ourselves a nation of laws, and rightly so. The physician in our society has reasonably high privileges and with that come equally high duties. An injured party ordinarily cannot sustain an action for malpractice without having an expert, ie, a physician, agreeing with him that malpractice did occur. The injured party cannot legally subpoena an expert, since only witnesses to fact can be subpoenaed, ergo, his entire case may turn on his ability to secure an expert for his cause, not on the issue of malpractice itself. In the past, a physician's refusal to testify was called conspiracy of silence.