College Works to Address
Expert Witness Issues

by Paul F. Nora, MD, FACS
Director, Professional Liability Program

At the recent Clinical Congress in San Francisco, CA, the ACS Board of Governors recommended that the College continue to help resolve the problem of the itinerant plaintiff expert witness.* Because itinerant plaintiff expert witnesses who provide inappropriate and inaccurate testimony are still commonplace, there is a need for an expanded and comprehensive database to track such testimony.

To that end, the ACS is working with IDEX\T, a clearinghouse for information on testimony by plaintiffs' expert witnesses. (This association is complementary to the College's ongoing relationship with the Defense Research Institute). Currently, IDEX has more than 2,000 members that include defense firms, insurance companies, corporations, and governmental entities. The IDEX database has approximately 500,000 records of experts who have been involved in cases around the country. Typically, over 6,000 new records are added each month.

IDEX states that it can provide:

• expert witness testimony history (case details)
• transcript/document archival
• articles/books authored by the expert
• articles wherein an expert's name appears
• information on professional disciplinary actions taken against an expert
• scientific and medical literature research
• information on cases similar to yours
• assistance in locating an expert to help build your defense.

The Board of Governors believes that IDEX offers physicians and their attorneys an excellent chance of finding helpful information on the experts who testify in medical malpractice cases. For more information, contact IDEX at their toll-free number, 800/521-5596. When calling IDEX, advise them that you are a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. IDEX will then send you the appropriate form to request the testimonial history of a particular itinerant plaintiff expert witness. A modest fee will be required only if the search is successful. Any additional information that is available through IDEX will be noted in this report, along with the additional fees that would be required to obtain this documentation. The information from IDEX may also be requested by your defense counsel.

If Fellows believe that inappropriate and inaccurate testimony by a plaintiff expert witness has been given against them, it would be extremely useful for such information to become part of the IDEX database. If you are named as a defendant in a lawsuit, the College recommends that either you or your counsel access IDEX concerning the plaintiff expert witness in your case. Active participation by the defendant surgeon cannot be underestimated.

*The August 1989 Bulletin featured a statement on the physician expert witness that was issued by the Professional Liability Committee of the Board of Regents. The College recommends that Fellows who are desirous of testifying as expert witnesses become familiar with the information in this statement.

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Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons
Vol. 82, No. 3, March 1997

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Professional Liability

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