10. EMC Review Process for Expert Medical Testimony in closed legal cases

The EMC Review Process for Expert Medical Testimony in closed legal cases (1)
The bylaws of EMC and the specialty committee evaluation rules process are formulated to insure the following:

1. That all evaluations are conducted with rules to eliminate bias against plaintiff or defendant experts, conflict of interest, or unfairness in the review of any expert’s prior court testimony.
2. That the expert being evaluated be allowed to submit evidence to support his standard of care position as part of the committee’s decision-making process.
3. The review process will only deal with the review of testimony related to the standard of care issues involved in the case. Opinions and other testimony of the physician expert not pertinent to the evaluation of standard of care issues will not otherwise be evaluated or reported. Likewise personal issues and other matters of the physician’s history will not be collected or evaluated by the review committees or any other committee of EMC. EMC will resist any attempt to petition it for records or testimony of any of its committees, records or employees as it regards any of its peer reviews protected proceedings.

The EMC Review Process for Expert Medical Testimony in closed legal cases (2)

4. The national medical specialty society of the expert consultant involved may be petitioned for background evidence based information regarding certain standard of care issues maintaining anonymity as to the physician under review and that physician’s plaintiff or defendant position in the closed case.
5. The review process is voluntary and the expert being reviewed has the option to:
1. Exclude certain specialty reviewers from a list of available reviewers without cause.
2. Decline the review process with possibility of exclusion from EMC membership by action of its Board of Directors upon request by his specialty committee.
3. Delay the review process citing personal privilege acceptable to the Board of Directors.
4. Submit evidence based support for his standard of care position being reviewed to the specialty committee
6. The review process is confidential as is any peer review process and all reviewers must agree to maintain confidentiality.
7. Requests for review will only be accepted from established medical and governmental organizations. Patient, plaintiff and defendant review petitions for review are prohibited. Random reviews initiated internally by EMC may occur without petition.
8. EMC will insure that repetitive, unwarranted reviews will be disallowed.
9. The reports and deliberations of the review panel are protected and non-discoverable as peer review matters. Expert medical witness review processes will not take place in state jurisdictions where state laws and/or state medical board procedures do not allow for the peer review protected procedures of EMC.