"expert witness" list on AAEM

Here's the link to the old thread. The first post has the link to the AAEM site. I don't think it went very far as the lawyers began threatening everyone over the idea of making "experts" accountable for their BS.

If only we (as in AAEM) had the balls neurosurgeons have . The right for a professional conduct committee to investigate and punish it's own members has been upheld by the courts courtesy of the AANS. If every medical association had the guts and spent enough time on this, it might decrease the hordes of these 'expert' ******.

willow18 said:

If only we (as in AAEM) had the balls neurosurgeons have . The right for a professional conduct committee to investigate and punish it's own members has been upheld by the courts courtesy of the AANS. If every medical association had the guts and spent enough time on this, it might decrease the hordes of these 'expert' ******.

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Very true. But the lawyers make a lot of righteous sounding arguments to keep the ****** on the stands. The public buys their arguments. We know that in practice it's all crap but it sounds good to the public.

docB said:

Very true. But the lawyers make a lot of righteous sounding arguments to keep the ****** on the stands. The public buys their arguments. We know that in practice it's all crap but it sounds good to the public.

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I don't hold out hope for a law that expert witnesses must be board-certified; the Trial Lawyers Association is way too strong to let that pass. But if every medical specialty policed it's members like the neurosurgeons do, defense lawyers could at least shame/diminish the credibility of these 'expert witnesses' by having them explain why they were disciplined/thrown out by their specialty board. We need to stop bit$%ing about the system and actually do something about it. We may not yield much power over Congressional ******, but we can start by working on the whoas in our profession.

docB said:

Very true. But the lawyers make a lot of righteous sounding arguments to keep the ****** on the stands. The public buys their arguments. We know that in practice it's all crap but it sounds good to the public.

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The interesting thing about that link is how the first case diciplines a defense witness who tried to redirect blame away from the hospital. Many plantiffs attorneys scream and cry that all reform is aimed at preventing people who have been hurt from getting compenstated. That case of diciplinary action would seem to prove otherwise. A bad witness is a bad witness.

If you want a laugh, here's a link from the Whitecoat blog about how Texas is trying to force attorneys to be up front when they don't carry insurance. Be sure to read the whiney comments by all the lawyers terrified of being sued! The hypocrisy is delicious.

willow18 said:

But if every medical specialty policed it's members like the neurosurgeons do, defense lawyers could at least shame/diminish the credibility of these 'expert witnesses' by having them explain why they were disciplined/thrown out by their specialty board. We need to stop bit$%ing about the system and actually do something about it.

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Couldn't agree more. We should help define the 'standard of care' by policing our own. Honestly, if I had unlimited money I'd help harassed physicians countersue every plantiff attorney I could find. Animals that act like prey and run get eaten; we need to fight back.

I really enjoyed this comment from the Texas link above:

"All attorneys have clients who are never satisfied even when they have reached a good settlement to their case. Mentioning liability insurance to this sort of client will only encourage malpractice suits for them to see what else they can get."

Hypocrites indeed.