Medical expert witnesses need training and skill in healthcare systems

The Medical Protection Society’s desire for greater training for expert witnesses in medical negligence cases is laudable but misses an important point.1As the Medical Protection Society notes, medical expert witnesses are likely to be at the end of their careers or near retirement.2 It may be decades since they worked as junior doctors, in a system that was completely different from today’s.It is insufficient to exhort medical expert witnesses to “consider system issues when reviewing an adverse outcome,”2 much less to expect the General Medical Council to insist they do. They are experts in clinical medicine, not healthcare systems.The Medical Protection Society’s acknowledgment that “the standard a doctor will be measured against is set to a very large extent by the medical expert witness” is concerning.2 Such an expert might think themselves to be qualified to comment on healthcare systems because of their years of specialist clinical experience in a…
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