Practice Areas

The defendants’ and defense expert depositions - know your medicine.

When taking expert depositions, there is simply no substitute for having a thorough grasp of all aspects of gentamicin poisoning. It is very intimidating for an infectious disease physician to throw out “gentamicin was used synergistically,” and have you question him, without looking at your notes, on what he specifically meant by “synergistically,” on whether a synergistic effect had ever been demonstrated on the particular organism being treated with the specific antibiotic combination the ID was using, and then pulling out a paper demonstrating lack of synergy from that particular combination. In gentamicin cases, (as in most areas of medical malpractice), the devil is in the details. I have had offers of settlement shortly after I deposed defendant physicians or pharmacists. These offers were based on the defense realization that because I had very specifically and successfully challenged the deponents on certain assumptions and statements, there was no hope of rehabilitation at trial.