What to Know Before You Testify in Court

Extract

In the lead article Cynthia Northrop and Ann Mech discuss the growing role of nurses as expert witnesses in malpractice litigation. As they note, the increasing professionalization of nursing has led to more and more courts accepting the testimony of nurses as authoritative on the question of proper nursing practice. As a supplement to that article it is worth noting that nurses are also being called upon more frequently to testify on a wide variety of health care issues, and accordingly it is important for all nurses to have some familiarity with what goes on in a courtroom so that their testimony will be effective and useful to the judge and jury.

For example, I recently had occasion to sit in on the first day of trial of a case in Minneapolis involving the question of the appropriateness and lawfulness of an order not to resuscitate. During that day testimony was heard from four nurses, two laypersons, and one physician. Of these witnesses, only the physician seemed at home in the courtroom.