Quick question to the group: is your opposition to expert witnesses limited to medicine or are you equal opportunity opponents to all industries?
In other words, are you so committed to your ideology that you would forgo any lawsuit against, say a contractor who burned down your home with faulty wiring?
You're missing the whole point. No, we don't think "all expert witnesses are bad" in Medicine or in all industries. And no, we don't think people should be able to burn down our houses, without consequences.
The part you don't seem to understand, is that many of us have been targeted with meritless lawsuits or board complaints. There is a tremendous emotional power that comes with that. You'll never win hearts and minds by trying to dismiss that experience.
I've been falsely accused of malpractice for "missed UTI" even though the patient had a negative cath urine and a negative urine culture. I eventually won and cleared my name, but not before I went thorough a terrible, time consuming, emotional process I didn't deserve.
I was falsely accused of missing a spinal cord tumor because a CT tech put the wrong physician name (mine) on a CT myelogram order that I never ordered. It took me almost a year to clear my name with the state medical board and was a terrible, time consuming, emotional process I didn't deserve.
When you're talking to physicians who have lived with being falsely and unjustly accused of malpractice, saying "Show me the data" to prove it is, tremendously insulting. Perhaps that's your intention. Then, using a predator/prey analogy further implies you're not on the side of the wrongly-accused physician, but a predator looking for fellow-physician prey. That's aggressively insulting. Perhaps that's your intention. Would you walk into a room of fellow police or FBI and tell them you are "predator" and they are the 'prey'? Maybe you would. Would you dismiss harassment or mistreatment they've face in the line of duty, and say, "Show me the data or it didn't happen"? Maybe you would.
Not only have I been falsely accused, but like you, I have worked as an expert witness (defense only). I understand both the expert-witness side and the falsely-accused physician side. I understand how being persuasive, first to the attorneys we are consulted by, then to the jury, is paramount. I realize
somebody is going to end up being consulted by plaintiffs attorneys to give opinion, and that it's
much better if that ends up being a good, honest and ethical person. However, there are many ways to make that point to fellow physicians.
If you truly want to be persuasive with the point you say you're trying to make, without being insulted to fellow colleagues, this is how I would do it.
"I understand some of you have been harassed by accusations lacking merit. Reducing or eliminating meritless lawsuits is a concern to all physicians. While I can't be sure, with certainty, what percentage of lawsuits are meritless, if even one physician is falsely accused of malpractice, it's one too many. In some cases, that may be due to a bad or unethical physician expert encouraging an attorney to move forward with a case they shouldn't. But the only way to keep those false claims moving forward is to have more good, ethical expert physician-experts, like you and I, involved in the process. If we get to these meritless cases first,
we can stop them. If good people refuse to do this kind of work, then the bad guys win, and those cases move forward. If you're a good, ethical person, get involved and make this process better. Take this industry back, for the good guys."