Ethical issues of expert witness testimony.

Abstract

Being a surgical expert witness (EW) in professional liability claims implies ethical responsibilities, which are usually unknown to the parties who try to obtain such testimony as well as to the surgeons involved in providing the expert opinion required by the courts. Giving medical testimony can be included in the field of surgery since (1) being an expert medical witness and judge the performance of another surgeon means that the witness must have a medical license and preferably be board-certified as a surgeon, and (2) the EW opinion sets the standard of care to be applied in each particular case. Thus, the role of the surgeon EW in the legal arena must have the same degree of integrity as the surgeon in his practice with direct patient care and it should be reviewed and subject to regulation.