title: When medical reports become expert medical evidence: judgments of the Court.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper analyses what happens when medical reports are reframed to become expert evidence in the New Zealand District Court. The aim is to understand what judges do with, and want from, medical reports.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty medical reports were analysed for their properties as instances of a specialised genre. Twenty judgments of the District Court were then analysed to see how medical reports are edited and reframed in such judgments. The analytic techniques used were those of genre analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When they are edited and become expert evidence in a court, medical reports written for one purpose are used for a different purpose. In a court, medical reports are assessed for the way they bear on the matter at issue and for their quality as expert evidence.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The judgments of the medical reports made by judges can provide guidelines which may assist medical professionals in writing medical reports.
authors.affiliation: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. kon.kuiper@canterbury.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Koenraad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kuiper
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005104:Expert Testimony / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D009520:New Zealand