PROFESSIONCourts split on medical societies' role in policing expert witnessesAs associations increasingly scrutinize physician expert testimony, conflicting court decisions highlight the debate over whether this ensures quality or stifles dissent.By Amy Lynn Sorrel, amednews staff. Aug. 21, 2006. Recent court rulings out of Kansas and Florida clash in their findings of whether state and federal peer review protections should apply to medical society programs that evaluate what expert witnesses say in medical liability cases. The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas in June said that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' grievance process for reporting questionable medical expert testimony is a "professional review action" under the federal Health Care Quality Improvement Act, and that complaints filed through the program are immune from lawsuits. Conversely, in July, Florida's 1st District Court of Appeal unanimously held that state and federal immunity statutes do not clearly state that expert testimony should be subject to peer review. Therefore, the court said, the law does not protect the Florida Medical Assn. and three of its members from a defamation lawsuit filed by an expert witness under review. Each decision hinged largely on the question of whether giving expert testimony falls under the definition of the practice of medicine. It's a question on which physicians have weighed in on both sides. "We believe that testifying as a medical expert is the practice of medicine, and we believe that it should be regulated," said Florida internist Cecil B. Wilson, MD, chair of the AMA Board of Trustees. Dr. Wilson said doctors are legally and ethically responsible for ensuring that expert testimony is honest and fair, and that professional review bodies "should have peer review protection when they are evaluating it for that reason." [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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