The orthopaedic surgeon as an expert witness: who, when, why and for how long?

Abstract

An expert is normally defined as someone who has comprehensive and authoritative knowledge or skill in a particular field. The practice of obtaining expert medical opinion in either personal injury cases or medical negligence cases is largely unregulated in the United Kingdom. It is left to the instructing party to decide who to instruct on the basis (presumably) of the reputation of the expert, recommendation from other instructing parties or previous experience of working with the expert. During the course of his career, an individual orthopaedic surgeon will develop the experience in certain areas of their clinical practice to give such expert opinion. Their position as experts will be based on their training, clinical experience, research, publications and wisdom. Their status may be enhanced by membership of organisations such as their national orthopaedic association and specialist societies. Their status may also be enhanced by membership of legal entities such as the Expert Witness Institute. Many orthopaedic surgeons do carry out expert witness work. The medico-legal playing field in the UK has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. In order to cut costs and speed up the process, the use of orthopaedic surgeons as expert witnesses has decreased in favour of GPs, particularly in lower value cases of soft-tissue or whiplash injury. There have been a number of medical reporting agencies in the UK that have appeared with the object of streamlining the claims process. However, this has introduced another link into the chain and in some respects, despite claims to the contrary, made the process more complex from the experts’ perspective. Solicitors favour it because it takes a lot of the organisational work away from them but, more importantly, it helps their cash flow as the agency will frequently insist on experts deferring settlement of their fees. The agency …