3. Medical Specialty Organizations - Standards of Care Education

Review of the professional liability statements of major specialty organizations reveals no clear pattern of credentials for designation as an expert medical witness.^{3, 7} Any member in good standing with the appropriate board certification and other time dependent certificates of re-education is considered eligible for representation as an expert medical witness. There are no regularly required specific seminars or training required of potential experts. Some of these organizations do convene seminars on expert medical witness testimony at annual education meetings that are not mandatory. Therefore, there is no formal education process for the expert medical witness that teaches the interface between clinical knowledge and the requirements to establish or defeat allegations of breaches of the standards of care. In addition, although certain medical specialty organizations publish practice parameter updates and other treatment protocols, there is no specific document known to be published by any of these organizations that clearly defines the standards of care in the detail necessary to quote at trial.  Many of these documents specifically state that they are not intended to define the standard of care. This makes it imperative that expert medical witnesses understand that they and fellow experts in all specialties are collectively defining their specialty’s national standards of care in each case via their declarations, depositions and trial testimony.