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Opinion on…


Continuing a series of profi les on professionals working with MDDUS, Jim Killgore speaks with Dr Malcolm Campbell who provides expert medical opinions in clinical negligence cases


PHOTOGRAPH: CLAIRE MILLAR I


N 2011 MDDUS logged over 500 new claims of negligence against members. Certainly few things can make a clinician’s heart sink more than receiving a


letter of claim from solicitors acting on behalf of a patient – even if such a letter has been expected. A phone call to an MDDUS adviser will do much to


ease any panic – and this is oſt en the fi rst step in a sometimes long process to establish the most reasonable outcome for all parties involved in a case. T e MDDUS adviser will usually ask for a copy of the letter and an initial response from the member in answer to the allegations. In order to weigh up the best approach going forward the adviser or an MDDUS lawyer will then oſt en commission a report or reports from external clinical experts. One of the UK’s most experienced medico-legal


experts when it comes to general practice is Dr Malcolm Campbell. I chatted with him recently one aſt ernoon at the MDDUS offi ces in Glasgow, just a short walk from the Department of General Practice at the University of Glasgow where Malcolm acts as a senior clinical lecturer. Malcolm has been doing medico-legal work for over 15


years, mainly for the GMC as a lead performance assessor in fi tness to practise investigations but he also provides expert reports in civil cases. In addition he remains a GP partner at the same practice in Kirkintilloch near Glasgow where he started his career in 1975.


When I ask Malcolm why he writes medico-legal


reports on top of what seems an already impossibly busy professional life, his reply is surprising: “To be honest, I don’t do it because I want to save humanity or because I feel sorry for doctors who get sued. I feel just as sorry for patients who get badly treated. It’s really because I fi nd it incredibly interesting.” Part of the interest and challenge that comes with


generating clinical opinions in medical negligence cases is the analytical skill needed to get at the truth in a sometimes tangled and contradictory narrative. “It requires a certain turn of mind,” says Malcolm. “A


desire to get to the bottom of things, Hercule Poirot type stuff almost. Looking at what happened, developing a story, and then coming to a conclusion and being right. And if you are not right at least you learn something.”


No page unturned Malcolm’s job begins with the receipt of an oſt en thick bundle of paper (or the electronic equivalent) including details of the allegation from claimant solicitors, a copy of the GP’s response, the patient records, both primary and secondary care, and any other relevant legal documents or previously commissioned expert reports. “You get all this material and then you sit down and


read it – every single page,” says Malcolm. “T ere are usually bits of information all over the place. You have the GP notes, what the doctor says, what the plaintiff says, and you try to put all that together initially to produce a chronology, a narrative. I always do that fi rst without really bothering myself with the issues.” “Sometimes the information will be confl icting. T e


patient might say: ‘I went to see my doctor 26 times during that year complaining of my sore toe’ and the medical records will have no reference at all to a sore toe. So what you do is set down both versions of the story – completely impartially and then you gradually work your way through to the end.”


14


SUMMONS


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