Your doctor was careless.
You suffered terrible injuries because of his wrongdoing.
You brought a lawsuit against him seeking compensation for all the harms you received.
During the course of your lawsuit I have an opportunity to question the doctor whom you sued.
Legally, this is known as a deposition.
It's also known as an examination before trial.
This takes place in the attorney's office.
There's a court reporter present to record all of my questions and all the doctor's answers.
It carries the same exact weight as if the doctor it's testifying at trial.
When I arrived at this pretrial deposition, I could see the doctor was ready for a fight.
He was very tense.
He was very curt.
He was very uptight.
It was if he had steam coming out of his ears.
He appeared to be taking out his anger on the fact that we brought a lawsuit against him.
He appeared outraged that we were questioning his medical ability.
It was if he was saying “How dare you question me and my ability, my education and my training?”
At the beginning of this question and answer session, the doctor was very short in his responses.
"Yes, no, I don't know or I can't answer the question."
After a while, it was time for me to ask him to explain his answers.
“Doctor, explain to me why you chose to do X, Y, or Z.”
“Doctor, tell me what this medication is used for.”
“Doctor, what is a differential diagnosis?”
No matter how angry or upset the doctor is with me, this is my opportunity to establish the facts, from his viewpoint and also to get him to explain what the standards of medical care were at that time.
This doctor is presumed to be an expert in his field of medicine.
Therefore, I am allowed to ask him to define what the standard of care was for this particular situation.
Later on, I will ask him certain hypothetical questions that will help me establish, if done correctly, that he violated the basic standards of medical care causing this patient injury.
