title: The spectrum of expert reports on clinical biochemical toxicology and medicine from an Irish practice.
abstract: The compounds which generated an expert opinion report in the area of medical toxicology in the period 1999 to 2015 are presented from the toxicological case files of a specialist in chemical pathology and general internal medicine. There were 132 different compounds from 86 cases. Alcohol was involved in 43%, drugs of abuse in 18.6%, volatile carbon compounds in 17.4%, metals in 9.3%, and carbon monoxide in 4.6%. Many compounds appeared once. The duty of the medical expert witness to provide an objective report for the court irrespective of the payer is stated. The addition of references from peer reviewed literature to substantiate the pros and cons of each case is recommended as a standard operating procedure in completing each report.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Pathology, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK billtormey@gmail.com.
authors.forename: William P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Tormey
mesh_terms: D053593:Forensic Toxicology; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D058028:Research Report
keywords: Expert reports; compounds; toxicology