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Lopez v. Reddy3/30/2005
ons and the basis of his opinion to the trial court in his affidavits; further, parts of his deposition testimony were available to the court as exhibits to the motions. In the affidavits, Dr. Singer clearly stated that he was not commenting on the surgical technique employed by Defendant. We summarize Dr. Singer's description of his qualifications and rationale as follows:
(1) He is a medical doctor licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and having been in practice since 1968.
(2) He has medical privileges in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology.
(3) Although he does not perform surgery, he reviews the results of surgical procedures done by surgeons on his cancer patients.
(4) He maintains that he is "perfectly capable of determining whether a surgeon has in fact removed all of the tissue which was meant to be removed during the surgery."
(5) He previously performed biopsies, during his residency training under the supervision of surgeons.
(6) These surgeons instructed that unless there was some reason why it was either imprudent or impossible, all of the tissue that made the biopsy necessary should be removed; in the present case, the records did not indicate that it would be imprudent or impossible.
(7) In arriving at his opinion of Defendant's breach of the standard of care, Dr. Singer reviewed the medical records in the case from before and after both surgeries, as well as the deposition testimony of Dr. Ramos, which supports Dr. Singer's conclusion.
Based on the foregoing, Dr. Singer opined that Defendant's failure to remove all of the tissue identified by the radiology report breached the standard of care.
{19} Plaintiffs contend that under New Mexico law, Dr. Singer is qualified to testify on the issues in this case, even though he is not a specialist in the same field as Defendant. As support for this proposition, Plaintiffs cite to Sewell v. Wilson, 97 N.M. 523, 641 P.2d 1070 (Ct. App. 1982), a medical negligence case, in which this Court stated that " here expert testimony is required, the mere fact that a medical witness is not a specialist goes to the weight, not to admissibility, of the witness' expert testimony." Id. at 528, 641 P.2d at 1075. However, the pertinent holding in that case was that "a non-specialist can testify as to the standards of care owed by a defendant specialist, but only if the non-specialist is qualified and competent to do so." Id. (emphasis added). In that case, we reiterated the requirement in Rule 11-702 that an expert witness must be qualified to testify by "knowledge, skill, training or education" and must be "able to testify as to how and why he arrives at an opinion that a defendant physician's conduct has been substandard." Id.
{20} Similarly, Plaintiffs cite to Blauwkamp v. University of New Mexico Hospital, 114 N.M. 228, 233, 836 P.2d 1249, 1254 (Ct. App. 1992), where this Court concluded that the plaintiffs were not required to produce an expert who was a specialist in the identical field of practice as the defendants in order to withstand a summary judgment motion. Contrary to Plaintiffs' assertion, however, Blauwkamp does not stand for the proposition that a court may never require that a proposed expert have specific expertise. See 4 Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein's Federal Evidence ยง 702.04 , at 702-58 (2d ed. 2004) (stating that " n some instances, it will be appropriate for the trial court to insist that a proposed expert witness have specific expertise before allowing him or her to testify"); Ralston 275 F.3d at 969-70 (upholding a lower court finding that the expert, a board-certified orthopedic sur
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