I do med mal work for my own side gig because i actually enjoy it and find it interesting. it definitely pays more hourly than clinical work, but it’s not always as steady or voluminous. I also maintain a schedule that makes depositions and trial testimony not painful.
If you don’t really think you’d enjoy the legal aspect of medical cases or the puzzle aspect of putting together abstract medical records into some thing that makes sense (akin to M&M), as stated above only offer to be a fact witness. This way you’re simply redundant To what you documented.
If they do, ultimately want you, as a fact, witness, I believe you can only testify if you were subpoenaed, in which case you are required to do so.
I was once subpoenaed by prosecutors office in a murder case and it was very annoying because I had to move my schedule around twice and wasted two days going to court when they didn’t even call me
I don’t do it because it’s “not interesting”;
I don’t do it because it’s a shady gig, it’s retrospective speculation that is biased, cynical, and has played a large roll in ruining the specialty, the medicolegal climate in America is singularly 8ull**** among civilized countries, and docs who do this like Peter Rosen deserve to die in obscurity, friendless among their peers in the specialty.
FYI the DA office in certain west coast cities will subpoena docs as fact witnesses and try to get them to basically serve as expert witnesses for free. You know because you get subpoenaed via your work office via email or letter (not in person as would be required if you REALLY needed to show up) and then you come to find out you’re not the defendant, you are merely the doc of record in the case. Call them, ask them what they want, and these wet-behind-the-ear DAs will tell you they want you there because it’s necessary for you to testify about your care, what the story is etc. they are trying to get you to project what you think caused a particular injury in most cases, like give them your opinion that an injury was caused by assault and that the ramifications could be long lasting. I tell them if I’m a fact witness, what they want it already in the chart. If they want me as an expert witness, they need to pay me. Usually their next response is they try and intimidate and tell me I am obligated because of their subpoena to come and talk about the case. I laugh every time, and tell them it will be embarrassing for them, because if called to testify I will only read verbatim from the chart to the court, will not answer any question that asks me to clarify, instead I will continually repeat, “I have no recollection but what is already written in the medical record.”
I’ve gotten these about every two years. I’ve yet to be subpoenaed personally for anything, I’ve yet to ever present according to the email/letter subpoena, and there are no outstanding actions against me for failing to do so (I’ve checked).
These lawyers are cheap, low-life, scam artists. The real ones will call you and ask you to provide a fee schedule for your services and if you’re defending care, more power to you.
But if you’re making money impugning the doc who Fd up when you now have the retrospective diagnosis and no acknowledgment of the specific nuances on the case, ie all the crap that goes into the average ER docs day, I’ve no sympathy for you when you Peter Rosen yourself and your career.
There will be at least some doc that says “but truly egregious care, we should seek to root that out, and I’m just helping the poor plaintiff where real malpractice occurred !” This is nonsense. If/when real malpractice occurs, other countries simply prove it from the actual medical record and build a case around comparing that to the published standard of care. Only in America does a stuffed shirt “medical expert” , paid handsomely (no bias there!) go up on the stand and wax lyrically about his/her own interpretation of the literature and how far the defendant deviated from it.
