17. How can membership in EMC reduce medical malpractice claims against physicians?

EMC is structured to reduce medical malpractice exposure for its members in addition to providing a peer review process for expert medical witness testimony. By joining EMC via one of its member categories , even though you may not be an expert medical witness, you nonetheless support the organization’s review and identification of improper expert medical witness testimony. Identification to the courts and the medical-legal community of significant erroneous testimony will make such experts unlikely to be selected as experts in future malpractice cases. The trial judge in the examination of experts will be unlikely to certify an expert for a trial who has been found to have been giving improper testimony significant enough to incur organizational sanctions. Improper declarations and testimony will decrease and lawsuits with no substance to allegations will be decreased. In any litigation wherein you are named, if you utilize experts in your behalf that agree to the EMC testimony review process, your legal counsel is in a strong position to challenge opposing experts who refuse to agree to the testimony review process. Erroneous declarations and testimony are less likely to occur, and meritless cases will be filed in fewer numbers. Without a very strong standard of care violation attributable to the medical management of the patient, a plaintiff’s deficient expert opinion will be unlikely to be sustained. The growing evidence based database of EMC analyzing the standards of care testimony of prior experts will be a difficult barrier to success. Similarly, expert witnesses for the plaintiff who are also EMC Fellows and prepared to pursue their breech of standards of care position in a case, are likely to have a position of merit since they have access to the same database of information.

This process provides for fairness for defendant and plaintiff to the extent that they both have access to the evidence base of medical records and expert testimony from prior cases. EMC itself remains the neutral party in the process taking care to insure that its analysis of data remains “evidence based” and bias free.