Acting as an expert witness

doi:10.1136/bmj.a933

From trainee to consultant, BMJ Group offers doctors around the world tailored information, special events, learning resources and recruitment services at every step along their career path.

... by doctors, for doctors, for patients
We are open for entries!

Online learning

BMJ Learning

High-quality CME / CPD for doctors and other healthcare professionals. BMJ Learning features hundreds of accredited, peer-reviewed learning modules in text, video, and audio formats. Find out more

Courses and Qualifications

BMJ Masterclasses

BMJ Masterclasses, led by experts, help clinicians to use the latest evidence and recent guidelines in practice and meet their CPD/CME requirements. Find out more

Exam Preparation

The leading provider of online exam preparation, helping over 167,000 healthcare professionals to pass their exams. Find out more

onExamination

Search all BMJ comment articles:

From

Limit by

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

Graeme Catto, president

¹General Medical Council, London

opce{at}gmc-uk.org

On the day the General Medical Council publishes its guidance on acting as an expert witness, Graeme Catto, the council’s president, explains the background to the document

The GMC has produced new guidance for doctors, on Acting as an Expert Witness.1 As well as being a source of guidance for doctors, we hope that it will help to clarify, for the legal profession, the boundaries within which medical experts operate.

Society needs doctors to act as expert witnesses; they are essential to our judicial and tribunal systems and help resolve disputes that require specialist medical knowledge. In recent years, however, there have been several high profile cases where medical expert witnesses have attracted criticism—for example, for giving evidence that was misleading or failing to disclose relevant information.

In light of the resulting debate, which included the chief medical officer’s report Bearing Good Witness,2 the GMC welcomed the call for clarification of its guidance for expert witnesses. Acting as an Expert Witness …