Lawyer Monthly - January 2022 Edition

ell us a bit about your background as a radiologist. After residency, I obtained specialised fellowship training in the performance and interpretation of abdominal imaging at Penn Medicine, one of the premier training institutions in the country. Since that time, I held several academic appointments interpreting a broad range of abdominal imaging studies ranging from high acuity trauma to cancer. Over the last several years, I have broadened my skill set as a general radiologist interpreting x-ray and CT for musculoskeletal, spine and neurological issues while also maintaining a focus on abdominal imaging with continuing experience in cancer imaging, including PET-CT. I have worked in a variety of settings, including academic medical centres, community hospitals, teleradiology practices, and dedicated overnight/ nighthawk services. As an attending radiologist at academic practices, I also routinely performed ultrasound and CT-guided procedures such as percutaneous aspiration, abscess t how to Choose an Effective Expert Witness For counsel, finding an expert witness who will provide high-quality insight is a difficult process. Their knowledge and integrity are crucial to the proper handling of a legal matter, yet no peer review system exists to judge their quality. In this feature, Jason Itri uses the context of his career as a radiologist and expert witness to explore the qualities that make a good expert witness and what litigators should be watchful for when seeking them out. 52 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | JAN 2022 EXPERT WITNESS drainage, thoracentesis/ paracentesis, and solid organ biopsy. My activities as an academic radiologist included teaching, research, administration, and quality. What sort of skills in this area do you bring to your work as an expert witness? One of my clinical and research focuses over the last 10 years has been on diagnostic errors in imaging – why they happen and what we can do to avoid them. This has given me a unique perspective related to diagnostic errors in malpractice cases where I am not just providing an opinion about whether a particular error was a breach of standard of care. I have first-hand experience reviewing thousands of missed and misdiagnosed cases coupled with primary research analysing errors and evaluating the impact of interventions designed to reduce errors. When I review an imaging study for a malpractice case, I can discuss how often that type of finding is missed, why it is typically missed, what factors may have contributed to the radiologist missing the finding in that particular case, if and why the miss is a deviation from the standard of care, and references Consulting on medical malpractice cases has made me a significantly better radiologist.