Accredited Psychiatry & Medicine

• Informed Consent &
  Malpractice
• Employment Litigation
  ADA - Disability - Sexual Misconduct
  Discrimination - Worker's Compensation
• Emotional &
  Physical Damages
  Conscious Pain & Suffering
  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging
• Standards for Experts
• Product Liability
  Medical Devices & Pharmaceuticals
  Toxic Tort
• Criminal Justice &
  Public Safety
  Diminished Capacity - Drug Addiction
  Competency to Confess
  Death Penalty Mitigation
  Workplace Safety
• Family & Custody Issues
• Testamentary &
  Contractual Capacity
• Professional &
  Organizational Ethics
  Patient Care - Managed Care - Privacy
• Psychoanalysis &
  Cultural Perspectives

Praise for Dr. Bursztajn

• "Dr. Bursztajn's testimony was, in my mind and those of other courtroom observers, instrumental in the jury's decision to sentence the defendant to life imprisonment rather than death. Had I known of Dr. Bursztajn in my previous cases I would have certainly asked him to be a member of the defense team." - Defense Lawyer
• "The colleague I rely on for my risk management consultation." - Harvard Medical School Professor of Cardiology.
• "Very precise and helpful." - National Physician's Group Director
• "Leading expert in employment litigation risk prevention." - Corporate Counsel.
• "Dr. Bursztajn's opinion was a model of carefully nuanced diagnosis." - Federal Distric Judge, favorable opinion.
• "Dr. Bursztajn's pro bono work on my client's behalf for Physicians for Human Rights is most appreciated." - Immigration Attorney
• "Has tremendously improved the quality of patient care and employment practices in a hospital." - Hospital Medical Director.
• In response to Dr. Bursztajn's presentation at Harvard School of Public Health:

  "The responses from the participants were exceedingly positive; their praise is directly due to the time, effort, and concern that you put into your presentation and the quality of your delivery."

• In response to a presentation at Harvard Medical School:

  "Dr. Bursztajn at Harvard Medical School Risk Management has continued to be very helpful."

• In Response to a presentation at Boston University:
  • "Dr. Bursztajn really managed to encapsulate nicely those features of practice we are most ignorant about, i.e. legal concerns, but did so in such a way that anxiety about same was minimized rather than heightened. Most attorneys I have dealt with do not have either knack!"
  • "Have not had to go to court - yet! - but felt that, if I am subpoenaed will be more prepared and less anxious."
  • "Dr. Bursztajn presented remarkably useful material and suggestions."
• Dr. Bursztajn as a recognized expert on Post-Daubert Criteria for Reliability and Relevance of Experts:

  "Reliability and Relevance of Experts"
  from The Internet Fact Finder for Lawyers
  by Joshua E. Blackman with David Jank
  ABA Publications, 750 North Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, IL 60611

  Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D. is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He also has broad courtroom experience as an expert witness in civil and criminal litigation. In his forensic practice, he has consulted to plaintiff and defense counsel and to state and federal agencies as an expert in medical-legal decision making and forensic psychiatry.

  Dr. Bursztajn's Web site (http://www.forensic-psych.com) focuses on the nexus of forensic psychiatry, medicine, and the law. He offers the following insights regarding using the Net to find medical experts:

  With its emphasis on judicial discretion and the judge as "gatekeeper" for admitting expert testimony, Daubert v. Merrel Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 113 S. Ct. 2786 (1993), has been slowly but steadily transforming how attorneys seek experts. With the increasing likelihood that an expert's testimony will face judicial scrutiny, the reliability and relevance of an expert's analysis and evaluation needs to be established long before trial; ideally prior to retaining an expert. While the specific guidelines enumerated by the Supreme Court for scientific testimony are most often used to evaluate the quantitative sciences, the more general criteria of reliability and relevance are increasingly used by judges to evaluate the admissibility of applied science-based expert medical opinion.

  One of my most common forensic consultations is to evaluate another "expert's" opinion. When I analyze it is as unreliable or irrelevant on medical decision analytic grounds, the attorney or court that has retained me can rapidly move to dismiss either the questionable testimony or the claim or defense as a whole that is founded on such testimony (Mayotte M. Jones v. Metrowest Medical Inc. (CA-96-10860-WD).

  By researching via the Internet, an attorney seeking an expert can avoid both false starts and subsequent disappointments. The Internet offers the following advantages for evaluating the potential usefulness of a medical expert in light of the general principles of Daubert:

  1. Reliability: The medical expert needs to be both a practicing physician who consults to other physicians and patients, and well published in refereed medical journals. This information can be gleaned from the expert's Web page more easily than from the c.v. alone. The Web page will often include not only a complete c.v., but also selected case citations and authored publications. Moreover, the expert with a resource page on the Web is more likely to be able to do computer-aided literature searches. Such research can provide the foundation for the reviews and analysis needed to corroborate the reliability of another expert's opinion. In addition, such research can identify alternative opinions in the medical community.
  2. Relevance: The medical expert needs to show ability to teach not only other medical professionals but also an ability to teach other professionals and educated laypersons, for example, judges, attorneys, and jurors. The attorney can have some sense of how the expert teaches in a public context by reviewing the expert's Web page. The fact that an expert has a content-filled, yet user-friendly Web page can itself be an indication that an expert has the competence, confidence, and sensitivity to present work in a public context with authority rather than arrogance, and in a relevant and meaningful manner.

• Psychiatric Times reader review: commenting on Dr. Bursztajn's article "Ethics and the Triage Model in Managed Care Psychiatry", which can be found in the September 1998 issue.

  Dr. Wear-Finkle, a Risk Manager for the psychiatry department of the United States Navy wrote to Psychiatric Times expressing her comments on the article.

  I would like to commend Drs. Bursztajn, Gutheil and Brodsky for their insightful article, "Ethics and the Triage Model in Managed Health Care Hospital Psychiatry," Published in the Sept. 1998 issue of Psychiatric Times. I agree with their premise that extreme care must be exercised when applying the triage model to a peacetime, non-emergency setting. The article eloquently presents the many contertransference issues involved, with the potential results of limiting or denying care based on the likeability of the patient.

  - Deborah J. Wear-Finkle, M.D., MPA Pensacola, Fla.