Position: Medical Expert Witness
Tennessee Department of Health is seeking medical expert witnesses. Experts must be licensed in TN or a contiguous state and have practiced at least one year prior to the occurrence of the allegations of wrongdoing in the case (so that’s case dependent, but generally at least two years in practice). The strong preference is that they live and practice somewhere in TN (rather than a contiguous state) as they will have to testify as to the statewide standard of minimal competency in the state.
All trials are held in Nashville, so the trial date testimony will require travel to Nashville, but we can travel to them for depositions and preparation work.
The hours depend on the complexity of the case and the litigiousness of the opposing party and counsel. The work involves review of medical records, preparation of a report on the care reflected in those records, meeting/call with attorney to discuss review and report, sometimes preparation for and being deposed, and sometimes preparation for and testifying at trial. All that depends on the complexity of the particular case. Even a simple case can add up to a fair number of hours if the other side does not want to settle and takes a deposition or the matter goes to trial. But those hours are spread out over the course of months. We would discuss the volume of records and general expected complexity of the case with the expert at the outset. If someone says they are interested in being an expert generally, we keep their name and as we have cases that come forward that would be a good match, we contact them about that case and discuss it with them to make sure they are available at that time, don’t have a conflict, etc.
Internal medicine, med/peds, and family medicine as well as pain management are our greater areas of need, but we have a large variety of cases that come up from time to time. So having a bank of people in varied professions is really helpful to be able to contact folks when a case in any number of potential areas comes up.
Please contact David Silvus at David.Silvus@tn.gov, as he supervises all the attorneys and investigators supporting the boards. He would be very happy to discuss expert work with anyone interested.