Featured Articles – Expert Witness Features – page 4

A developing specialism

by RALPH B GRAHAM FCPodS FCPodMed BSc(Hons), consultant podiatric surgeon

SPECIALIST treatment of the foot has been established since the 18th century, as the emerging barber surgeons and medical practitioners refused to treat the foot. From those early beginnings the profession became established in the UK until registration with the pre-war voluntary system and then the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine in 1960.

At the turn of this century regulation was re-drawn; the Health Professions Council was established and podiatry and podiatric surgery are now regulated by the HPC.

Maxillofacial surgery and the Holy Grail

by PROFESSOR KHURSHEED MOOS

EVERY surgical specialty inevitably overlaps with another. For maxillofacial surgery that tends to be with ENT, plastic surgery, dental surgery and sometimes ophthalmic surgery.

For maxillofacial trauma, cleft lip and palate surgery and head and neck surgery (cancer), there is now little argument that it is primarily maxillofacial surgery. When the surgery requested is for facial deformity or aesthetic (cosmetic) surgery the issues are often more difficult for the patient and the surgeon.

Pain is real, but must still be assessed

by Dr NICHOLAS PADFIELD consultant in anaesthesia and pain management at Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Trust

“Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience.”

There you have it: that is the core definition by the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Neurological opinion: why it is so important in medico-legal practice

by Dr MICHAEL GOSS MA MB BChir MD FRCP, consultant neurologist and founder member of the Expert Witness Institute (MEWI)

CONSULTANT neurologists undergo the longest training in clinical practice and it would be true to say that we never stop learning – both from advances in science and from our patients.

When children are concerned, it’s even more important to find the right expert

by Dr BASHIR QURESHI FRCPCH, FRCGP, expert witness in cultural, religious and ethnic issues in litigation, Community Child Health Medical Officer in London 1972-1998, medical member of child protection panels in London 1986-1998.

IT IS paramount for the legal assessment in a suspected child abuse case to select one or more appropriate expert witnesses. A cutback may prove to be a false economy.