Not all hired guns are this responsible:
When New York dermatopathologist A. Bernard Ackerman, MD, is called to testify as a medical expert witness, he refuses to know which side the lawyer represents.It is his way of remaining objective when he evaluates a case. In addition, the academic clinician typically previews his presentation of the facts and his opinion for a student audience, as a way of holding himself accountable.
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Admirable on the surface. Will sound good when presented to the jury. But does not add one iota of increased objectivity.
The greatest bias experts face is knowing the outcome of the alleged malpractice event. This was examined using expert trained reviewers for the Anesthesiology Closed Claims Project. Some cases submitted to the reviewers were changed so that the outcome (death, neurogic injury, permanant disability, temporary disability, mild inconvenience) differed from the bona fide case. The principal determinant predicting whether the reviewer would judge the medical care appropriate or below the standard of care was the outcome for the patient, not the care itself.
No matter how one tries to blind reviewers, the most important blinding must be the result for the patient. Standard of care is afterall immutable whether or not the patient had a perfect result of perfectly miserable result.
So in the end this expert’s behavior is really no better in function than any other’s, but it does help him sell his product.
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