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Formyduval v. Bunn6/20/2000
lty area, however, regardless of certification. Physician Characteristics at 6.
Our case law indicates that a physician who "holds himself out as a specialist" must be regarded as a specialist, even though not board certified in that specialty. See Wall v. Stout, 310 N.C. 184, 195, 311 S.E.2d 571, 578 (1984) (where defendant held himself out to be board-certified specialist in family practice, such defendant "is required to bring to the care of his patients more than the average degree of skill possessed by general practitioners"); see also Belk v. Schweizer, 268 N.C. 50, 56, 149 S.E.2d 565, 569 (1966) (physician "who holds himself out as specialist" must be held to higher standard than general practitioner); Dunn v. Nundkumar, 463 N.W.2d 435, 436-37 (Mich. Ct. App. 1990) (board certification not required to be "specialist;" physician who limits practice to obstetrics and gynecology is specialist in that field).
We thus hold that a doctor who is either board certified in a specialty or who holds himself out to be a specialist or limits his practice to a specific field of medicine is properly deemed a "specialist" for purposes of Rule 702. Actions by the legislature prior to passage of the amended Rule 702 support this interpretation. See Utilities Com. v. Coach Co., 233 N.C. 119, 123, 63 S.E.2d 113, 117 (1951) (construing statute by reference to prior version of enacted bill). Several versions of House Bill 730, the bill that ultimately resulted in the amendment to Rule 702, were submitted to the House Select Committee on Tort Reform and the Senate Judiciary I Committee. In at least four of these preliminary drafts of the bill, section (b), governing specialists, separated specialists into two groups. For example, proposed committee substitute PCS6142 provided:
(b) In a medical malpractice action as defined in G.S. 90-21.11, a person shall not give expert testimony on the appropriate standard of health care as defined in G.S. 90-21.12 unless the person is a licensed health care provider in this State or another state and meets the following criteria:
(1) If the party against whom or on whose behalf the testimony is offered is a specialist, the expert witness must specialize in the same specialty as the party against whom or on whose behalf the testimony is offered. However, if the party against whom or on whose behalf the testimony is offered is a specialist who is board certified or otherwise certified by a specialty health care group, the expert witness must be a specialist who is similarly certified in that specialty . . . .
This version of the bill indicates the legislature considered specialists to be of two categories: specialists who are board certified, and specialists who are not board certified. The final, adopted version of section (b) does not contain this division. Though the legislative history does not reveal the reason the division was removed, several committee members did express discomfort with the board certification language. See 26 April 1995 Minutes of the House Select Comm. on Tort Reform. One committee member specifically "questioned the reasoning for having to be board certified in order to be an expert witness." Id.
Regardless, had the legislature wished to limit the term "specialists" to only those physicians who are board certified, it had the language before it to do so. By removing the more restrictive category of "board certified" specialists from the statute, we believe the legislature expressed its intent that the term "specialist" include a broader category of physicians than only those who are board certified.
We further believe that the legislature intended the term "specialist" to include
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