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... it may be beneficial for defense counsel to purchase custom medical illustrations that support the defense’s medical theory of the case to counter plaintiff’s custom medical illustrations .*
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The permissible use of medical illustrations is to help the jury understand complex medical issues, not to show a fictional account of the plaintiff’s alleged pain and suffering.*
*Joseph P. Moriarty – Article in “For The Defense”, Defense Research Institute, April 2010
We create demonstratives that visually clarify complex issues, such as:
- Medical factors
- Case-specific/abnormal anatomy
- Pre-existing pathologies
- Radiological findings and laboratory/test results
- Anatomy and the relationship of structures
- Complex medical conditions
- Causation issues
- Alternative theories of causation
- Variations on surgical procedures
- Complexity of surgeries or other treatments
- Compounding medical conditions including pre-existing poor health
- Standard of care (SOC)
- Reasonable actions taken by the medical team that met the SOC
- Explain why alternative treatments were not feasible/would not have changed the outcome
- Magnitude of pathology related to treatment options
- Timing considerations
- Temporal issues of patient presentation/underlying medical conditions
- Demonstration of the safe window of treatment opportunities re the associated physiological factors
- Timely corrective procedures provided
- Physiological responses
- Normal physiological response to injury/surgery
- Client-specific response to injury/surgery
- Injury that can occur with no element of negligence
- Natural deterioration factors
- Normal physiology of healing with treatment provided
- Treatment considerations
- Contributions of previous injuries and surgeries (prior to the issue under consideration) to current condition of patient
- Known outcomes from procedures/informed consent
- Surgical views as through the eye of the surgeon (vs idealized/conceptual views)
- Successful post-operative findings