3,388 research outputs found
The medico-legal pitfalls of the medical expert witness
The fastest growing field of law is undoubtedly that of Medical Law with the civil
and disciplinary cases flowing from it. Globalization, international communication,
development and evolution of Law as well as Medicine, cause this worldwide
rising medical litigation.
Humanitarian rights, post-modern scepticism and even iconoclastic attitudes
contribute to this phenomenon. Medico-legal litigation and disciplinary complaints
rise (in South Africa) up to 10 per cent per year.
To assist the courts and legal profession, in medico-legal issues, helping the
parties where the plaintiff has the burden of proof and the defendant for rebuttal, a
medical expert witness must be used.
The dilemmas and pitfalls arise, in that although knowledgeable medical experts
could be used to guide the courts to the correct decision, the lack of a legal mind
setting, court procedure and legal knowledge could affect the relevance, credibility
and reliability, making the medical evidence of poor quality.
The legal profession, deliberately, could “abuse” medical expert witnesses with
demanding and coercion of results, which have unrealistic and unreasonable
expectations. “Case building” occurs, especially in the adversarial systems of law,
making the medical expert vulnerable under cross-examination, when it is shown
that the witness has turned into a “hired gun” or is unfair. Thus, lacunae develop,
making reasonable cases difficult and a quagmire of facts have to be evaluated for
unreasonableness, credibility and appropriateness, compounded by the fact that
seldom, cases are comparable.
The danger is that the presiding officer could be misled and with limited medical
knowledge and misplaced values, could reach the wrong findings. Several cases
arguably show that this has led to wrongful outcomes and even unacceptable
jurisprudence.
The desire to “win” a case, can make a medical witness lose credibility and
reasonableness with loss of objectivity, realism and relevance. With personality
traits and subjectivity, the case becomes argumentative, obstinate and could even
lead to lies. The miasmatic, hostile witness emerges, leading to embarrassing,
unnecessary prolongation of court procedures.
The medical expert witness should be well guided by the legal profession and well
informed of the issues. Medical witnesses should have legal training and insight
into the legal and court procedures. At the time of discovery of documents, via
arbitration or mediation, medical experts should strive to reach consensus and
then present their unified finding, helping the parties fairly and expediting the legal
procedure and processes.Private LawLL
Structural basis for rifamycin resistance of bacterial RNA polymerase by the three most clinically important RpoB mutations found in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136512/1/mmi13606.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136512/2/mmi13606_am.pd
XMM-Newton observations of seven soft X-ray excess QSOs
XMM-Newton observations of seven QSOs are presented and the EPIC spectra
analysed. Five of the AGN show evidence for Fe K-alpha emission, with three
being slightly better fitted by lines of finite width; at the 99 per cent level
they are consistent with being intrinsically narrow, though. The broad-band
spectra can be well modelled by a combination of different temperature
blackbodies with a power-law, with temperatures between kT ~ 100-300 eV. On the
whole, these temperatures are too high to be direct thermal emission from the
accretion disc, so a Comptonization model was used as a more physical
parametrization. The Comptonizing electron population forms the soft excess
emission, with an electron temperature of ~ 120-680 eV. Power-law, thermal
plasma and disc blackbody models were also fitted to the soft X-ray excess. Of
the sample, four of the AGN are radio-quiet and three radio-loud. The
radio-quiet QSOs may have slightly stronger soft excesses, although the
electron temperatures cover the same range for both groups.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Crop Responses to AmiSorb in the North Central Region
Originally used to prevent scale in boilers, carpramid or thermal polyaspartate (copoly[(3-carboxypropionamide)( 2-carboxylmethyl) acetamide)] was brought to agriculture under the trade names AmiSorb and Magnet. It claimed to increase nutrient uptake through artificially increasing the volume of soil occupied by roots through increased root branching and root hair development. Under controlled hydroponic or greenhouse conditions, the use of carpramid increased nutrient uptake, some yield determining factors such as wheat tillering and in some cases, crop yield. Extensive field testing from 1996 to 1998 under various nutrient regimes, placements, forms, and timings resulted in very inconsistent performance. Averaged across all experiments for which data were available, small yield increases were observed for corn (+1.75 bushels/acre), soybean (+0.63 bushel/acre), wheat (+1.07 bushels/acre), and grain sorghum (+0.32 bushel/acre), but at best only about one-fourth of the experiments (27 percent for corn and wheat) showed statistically significant yield increases. Across all crops, only three experiments showed an economic advantage to using carpramid. An attempt was made to better define the conditions when responses were observed but no clear pattern emerged that would allow improved probability of predicting a positive response.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_pubs/1225/thumbnail.jp
A Highly-Conserved Residue of the HIV-1-gp120 Inner Domain is Important for ADCC Responses Mediated by Anti-Cluster A Antibodies
Previous studies have shown that sera from HIV-1-infected individuals contain antibodies able to mediate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). These antibodies preferentially recognize envelope glycoprotein (Env) epitopes induced upon CD4 binding. Here, we show that a highly conserved tryptophan at position 69 of the gp120 inner domain is important for ADCC mediated by anti-cluster A antibodies and sera from HIV-1-infected individuals
The multi-modality cardiac imaging approach to the Athlete's heart: an expert consensus of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging
The term 'athlete's heart' refers to a clinical picture characterized by a slow heart rate and enlargement of the heart. A multi-modality imaging approach to the athlete's heart aims to differentiate physiological changes due to intensive training in the athlete's heart from serious cardiac diseases with similar morphological features. Imaging assessment of the athlete's heart should begin with a thorough echocardiographic examination. Left ventricular (LV) wall thickness by echocardiography can contribute to the distinction between athlete's LV hypertrophy and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). LV end-diastolic diameter becomes larger (>55 mm) than the normal limits only in end-stage HCM patients when the LV ejection fraction is <50%. Patients with HCM also show early impairment of LV diastolic function, whereas athletes have normal diastolic function. When echocardiography cannot provide a clear differential diagnosis, cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging should be performed. With CMR, accurate morphological and functional assessment can be made. Tissue characterization by late gadolinium enhancement may show a distinctive, non-ischaemic pattern in HCM and a variety of other myocardial conditions such as idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy or myocarditis. The work-up of athletes with suspected coronary artery disease should start with an exercise ECG. In athletes with inconclusive exercise ECG results, exercise stress echocardiography should be considered. Nuclear cardiology techniques, coronary cardiac tomography (CCT) and/or CMR may be performed in selected cases. Owing to radiation exposure and the young age of most athletes, the use of CCT and nuclear cardiology techniques should be restricted to athletes with unclear stress echocardiography or CMR
Cysticercosis-related Deaths, California
Cysticercosis is an increasingly important disease in the United States, but information on the occurrence of related deaths is limited. We examined data from California death certificates for the 12-year period 1989–2000. A total of 124 cysticercosis deaths were identified, representing a crude 12-year death rate of 3.9 per million population (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.2 to 4.6). Eighty-two (66%) of the case-patients were male; 42 (34%) were female. The median age at death was 34.5 years (range 7–81 years). Most patients (107, 86.3%) were foreign-born, and 90 (72.6%) had emigrated from Mexico. Seventeen (13.7%) deaths occurred in U.S.-born residents. Cysticercosis death rates were higher in Latino residents of California (13.0/106) than in other racial/ethnic groups (0.4/106), in males (5.2/106) than in females (2.7/106), and in persons >14 years of age (5.0/106). Cysticercosis is a preventable cause of premature death, particularly among young Latino persons in California and may be a more common cause of death in the United States than previously recognized
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