Fairly early on in my expert witness phase, I was asked to serve as an expert witness for a medical board that was pursuing an expert whose testimony was questionable. The "expert" had allowed his license in the state to lapse but was still giving testimony both there and in other states.
He basically testified that, because the outcome of a postoperative patient was catastrophic, he did not believe the medical record or the testimony of fact witnesses; and further, that he had a theory that the covering younger surgeon was protecting an older colleague. He accused this surgeon of lying on multiple levels, without a shred of evidence except that in the expert's experience (and he admitted he hadn't performed the procedure in question for years) the outcome could not have occurred in the absence of negligence.
This board investigated the case and felt that the expert's unsupported testimony showed a lack of integrity that reflected poorly on the profession. In his defense, the disciplined physician claimed that he had said the opposite of what the court reporter had officially recorded, and it was all a typographical error. My role was merely to educate the board members about the proper role of an expert witness under the law, based on an
