Providing expert medical testimony

Abstract

This paper represents an effort at making expert medical testimony, one field of the medical profession, more accessible to our junior medical colleagues. As there is no department for expert medical testimony at the Belgrade School of Medicine, neither textbooks on providing expert medical testimony, experiences and knowledge are not unified and have to be collected together from many sources. The work of the medical expert is not aimed at improving the health of a patient, but on the realization of a patient’s rights, which very often depend on the patient’s health. The medical expert confirms medical facts, which may be of legal significance, and, consequently represents a link between medicine and the law. The effects of that link also impinge into the financial sphere. Expert medical testimony is, therefore, an interdisciplinary activity and the medical expert must also have knowledge outside of medical science, in other words, knowledge of the potential legal significance of medical facts. The authors of this paper are professional medical experts and wanted to make precisely that knowledge, which falls outside of medicine but is essential in medical testimony, more accessible to their junior colleagues. This is knowledge of the rights on which their patients can rely from insurance companies (based on health or invalid insurance) or in court. Such knowledge can also help their patients with legal regulations, ethical principles, and establishing their legal rights.

Keywords

• medicine
• expert testimony
• expertise
• insurance