There are many advantages to retaining the services of an attorney who is also a physician. One area that is particularly useful is with the deposition. A deposition is basically a formal question and answer process where we ask questions of a doctor or nurse about what happened beyond what is written in the medical records. The deposition allows us to probe into the thoughts of the medical staff and find out what their reasons were for doing things the way they did.
As a physician, I know what the answers from doctors, nurses, and medical staff should be, so consequently when doctors go off on a tangent and begin answering questions with a lot of medical jargon, I am able to cut through it. I am able to get to the specifics of what happened and why things occurred that should not have occurred if normal care was utilized and the standard of care was appropriate in a particular case. This becomes especially important when we get into issues about the medical cause of specific problems; doctors have a tendency to confuse the issues by answering in different ways. So as a physician I'm able to basically ask them very specific questions and follow their train of thought wherever they are going and get the most information relevant to winning the case.
Another area where clients benefit from having a lawyer who is also a licensed medical doctor is with the medical records. Before an attorney can take on a case, he or she must determine if the case will likely be successful, whether tried in front of a jury, or settled prior to trial. Most of the evidence that is crucial to winning the case will be located in the medical records. It is critical that the attorney who handles your medical malpractice case, be extremely knowledgeable about both medical malpractice law and the medical field. This is why I maintain my medical license after practicing emergency room medicine for over 10 years. I find that having a strong medical background provides me with a strategic advantage when dealing with doctors and medical staff. At the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce G. Fagel & Associates, medical malpractice is all we do. We want to make sure we are the most knowledgeable source in one area, and one area only, medical malpractice.
