PI Brief Update

How can Lawyers assess Medical Expert's Skills - Dr Mark Burgin

26/05/23. Dr Mark Burgin explains how lawyers can achieve a more comprehensive view of an expert's performance using an open access claimant feedback questionnaire.

When lawyers are looking to instruct a medical expert, they will often use experts that they have previous experience of. This is because it is helpful to be familiar with an expert's work style, approach, and areas of expertise. However, it is not always possible to use an expert that the lawyer has worked with before. In these cases, it is important to take steps to get to know the expert and to ensure that they are a good fit for the case.

There are a few simple steps that lawyers can take to understand their medical expert. First, the lawyer should ask the expert about their experience, qualifications and publications. This will help the lawyer to assess the expert's credibility and expertise. Second, the lawyer should ask the expert about their approach to the case. This will help the lawyer to understand how the expert will work and what they will expect from the lawyer. Thirdly reading the expert’s report gives evidence about their clarity of thought and robustness of reasoning.

Current approaches to obtaining feedback from claimants on experts and assessments are limited. Claimants often provide feedback in a disorganized and chaotic way, which can make it difficult to interpret. Additionally, claimants' feedback may be biased by their general problems with people, rather than the specific expert or assessment. This can give lawyers a one-sided view of experts, as the absence of complaints may indicate an ineffectual expert rather than a good expert. A better approach is to obtain structured and balanced feedback through a questionnaire.

Claimant feedback questionnaire (open access)

Answer the following using the Scale: 1-5, with 1 being "not at all" and 5 being "completely".

1. How professional and knowledgeable did the doctor appear?

2. Did you feel you covered what you wanted?

3. Did the doctor show you respect and empathy?

4. How well did the doctor understand what you wanted to say?

5. How helpful was the doctor explanation your condition to you?

6. Were you given options as to improve your condition?

7. Did the doctor explain the options in a way you could understand?

8. Do you feel that you made progress towards better health?

9. Overall, how satisfied do you feel with your visit?

10. Do you trust that medicine can find answers for you?

Why these questions?

• How professional and knowledgeable did the doctor appear? This is an important question to ask, as it can give you an indication of the doctor's actual abilities by using the claimant as an expert in themselves. Claimants can see through an expert who does not really know their area through their experience with other doctors.

• Did you feel you covered what you wanted? This question can help you to determine whether or not the doctor took the time to listen to the concerns and answer the questions. It gives an insight into the doctor's communication style and whether or not the claimant felt comfortable asking questions.

• Did the doctor show you respect and empathy? This question is important to ask, as it can help you to determine whether or not the doctor treated the claimant with respect and compassion. It helps understand the doctor's bedside manner and they felt comfortable talking to the doctor about their personal health details.

• How well did the doctor understand what you wanted to say? This can help you to determine whether or not the doctor was able to understand the claimant’s symptoms and concerns. It also helps assess the doctor's listening skills and whether they could adapt their approach to the claimant’s needs.

• How helpful was the doctor explanation your condition to you? This question can help you to determine whether or not the doctor was able to explain the condition in a way that they could understand. It gives further information about the doctor's communication style and whether they can use language appropriate to the claimant’s needs.

• Were you given options as to improve your condition? This can help you measure how effective the doctor is at following the rehab code. Claimants often want more than just a report from the expert, they want to know what they can do to get better. An expert who explains the options is proving that they know more than just how to assess the claimant.

• Did the doctor explain the options in a way you could understand? This question is important to ask, as it helps assess whether the advice was given in the form that the claimant needed. Often advice sounds reasonable at the time but is quickly forgotten because it does not make sense.

• Do you feel that you made progress towards better health? This question explores the advice further by checking whether advice was practical and useful. It tests whether the condition and the advice fitted together and made sense to the claimant. In a way it would be surprising that a claimant felt that they are making progress after a 15-minute assessment.

• Overall, how satisfied do you feel with your visit? This is a catch all question that gives an overall view of the assessment. It acts as a check to ensure that the other questions have correctly captured the claimant’s experience. If there was an inconsistency between the other answers and this one then further investigation would be appropriate.

• Do you trust that medicine can find answers for you? This final question asks the claimant their attitudes to doctors and medicine in general. A claimant who does not believe in medicine will typically give lower scores. This can help calibrate the scores on other answers so for instance obtaining average scores for claimant who has no faith in doctors suggests an exceptional expert.

Conclusions

A claimant feedback questionnaire can be a valuable tool for lawyers to assess medical experts. By comparing the experiences of different claimants with different experts, lawyers can gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each expert. It is important to ensure that the questionnaire is developed for the specific purpose it will be used for, and that the instructions are clear and easy to understand. The shorter the questionnaire, the more likely it is to be completed by claimants. Offering incentives to claimants to complete the questionnaire can also increase the response rate.

This article was written with assistance from BARD a LLM from Google.

Doctor Mark Burgin, BM BCh (oxon) MRCGP is on the General Practitioner Specialist Register.

Dr. Burgin can be contacted on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 0845 331 3304 website drmarkburgin.co.uk

Image ©iStockphoto.com/shironosov

This is part of a series of articles by Dr. Mark Burgin. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand.