Les publications des experts médicaux : l’exemple de l’anesthésie-réanimation

Forensic expertise becomes dominant in our society. Several reports questioned the competence of medical experts. We analysed the scientific competence of the 136 experts in Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine from senior courts in France. For that purpose, we made the choice of the H-Index and the number of scientific publications as markers of quality, using Google Scholar and PubMed databases. Thirty-five percent of experts have an H-Index equal to zero and 27 % never published. Out of the 104 experts who published at least one scientific article, 27 (26 %) did not publish for at least 10 years. The present study illustrates the great heterogeneity of the medical expert population regarding our criterions of judgement. This questions the selection and the operating mode of legal experts. There is a major difference with the selection process performed by the French Conciliation and Compensation Commissions. We propose that the official scholarly societies should be consulted during the appointment process.