Expert Witness Blog
From the blog of medical expert witness Dr. Barry E. Gustin, MD, MPH, FAAEP:
Locality Rules and Qualifying Medical Experts
As medicine evolved, however, standards of practice slowly became homogenized across all communities, rural and urban. This happened because medical specialty and subspecialty organizations developed, and physicians were held to the same practice standards. Training became uniform, with all programs employing the same curriculum, using similar textbooks, and subjecting all doctors-in-training to the same qualifying exams, initially, and for recertification. Since the locality rule existed to essentially protect the country doc, the general practitioners who were not as well trained and did not have easy access to the latest medical knowledge and training, it did not apply to those medical specialists and subspecialists who claimed to have advanced training and unique skills. Thus, by the mid-1960’s, in most jurisdictions, these physicians were no longer able to invoke the locality rule when they were sued for malpractice. Instead, they were now required to meet a national standard of practice in their particular specialty. This marked the beginning of the end of the locality rule.