Can a physician testify concerning his opinion on the actions of a paramedic?

As I am not licensed in your state, I cannot provide you with specific legal advice as to Illinois state law. I would respectfully suggest that you contact a medical malpractice attorney in Illinois and pose this question directly to him or her. In some states who can testify against another defendant in a medical malpractice case is defined by statute.

The purpose of a medical expert is to give an informed opinion about the standard of care required of the defendant. In other words, does a physician know enough about the job of a paramedic to be an expert on what the paramedic should or should not have done in a given situation? Probably not. The general rule is that the expert has to be in the same specialty as the defendant.

We have dealt with this issue in several Illinois cases. The answer is a little bit tricky. A doctor (especially an emergency medicine doctor) is much more qualified to testify about many of these issues than a paramedic. So we have always argued that a physician is qualified to give this testimony. Nevertheless, there is some case law in Illinois that says you must have an expert in the same area of specialty (in this case a paramedic). Therefore, to be safe, we have retained paramedic experts in the past. There is a further concern because in many paramedic cases the applicable standard for paramedics is "wilful and wanton" and just failure to act as a reasonably careful paramedic in the area. Hope that helps a little.

In my own opinion i think physician can testify against the paramedic if proven that standard care profession was not done. Though i may be pretty hard to notice any malpractice from the paramedics because they are mostly the ones handling patients in a very fast manner. Anyway, you can consult any law firm who give free consultation.