Medical Malpractice Consultants: 57

The Physician Assistant Experts Network™ is a referral resource for attorneys seeking expert medical opinions on the standard of care provided by physician assistants and advanced nurse practitioners. The PA Experts Network™ was founded by Jeffrey G. Nicholson, PA-C, Ph.D., M.Ed., MPAS, an experienced medical-legal consultant and a leader in the physician assistant profession. He will either help you personally or facilitate a physician assistant expert from his network of board certified Physician Assistant Experts in all medical specialties. See his article on this website. Practicing 30 years, a PA Educator, Assistant Professor, and Director of the University of Wisconsin Physician Assistant Program.

Services Include:

• Medical Records Review, Deposition, Testimony, Referrals of PAs, NPs, Midwives, CRNAs, and allied health PT, EMT etc.

Education and Certifications:

• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, 2008
• Master of Education, M.Ed., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1989
• Masters Degree in Physician Assistant Studies, University of Nebraska Click here for Website to see complete resume and photo.

Dr. Patricia J. Bartzak, DNP, RN, CMSRN is a doctorally prepared Registered Nurse, with active nursing licenses in both Massachusetts and California.  Dr. Bartzak provides direct patient care in the hospital setting.  In addition to nursing research and education positions. Dr. Bartzak demonstrates both a wide and deep involvement in the nursing field. Her clinical practice provides the relevance, skill set, and understanding of what’s needed to create an environment that finds the evidence to optimize patient outcomes and leads the next generation of nurses. Dr. Bartzak utilizes peer-reviewed journal databases and meticulously references her sources and synthesizes information on complex nursing and health-related subjects. Currently working in a hospital designated as level 1 trauma center. 

Dr. Bartzak has completed the Intensive Course on Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) at the Fuld Institute at Ohio State University (2019) and is co-leading the adoption of EBP for a national organization. Dr. Bartzak has demonstrated skill in data mining and concept simplification to provide background and context for complex healthcare matters. Dr. Bartzak has worked in both union and non-union environments, and has the background and experience to consult with hospital leadership to engage and strengthen nurse’s investment in the workplace. Dr. Bartzak has written policies and procedures so she can assist other organizations in policy review and recommendations to ensure broad coverage, while also maintaining a risk management balance. Dr. Bartzak is versed in core measures and patient safety initiatives, and can provide an independent evaluation of practice issues and outcomes.

Finally, Dr. Bartzak has taught at all levels in nursing education from associate to doctoral, and can provide recommendations related to student progress in the academic area, and issues related to new graduate nurses transitioning into practice.

View Dr. Bartzak's Expert Witness Profile.

• Thoracic Surgery - The surgical treatment of diseases affecting the heart, lungs, and other organs within the thorax (chest).
• Vascular Surgery - The surgical management of diseases of the vascular system (arteries and veins), including standard surgical and minimally-invasive (endovascular) techniques.
• Non-invasive Vascular Testing
• Management of Venous disease - Radiofrequency ablation, microphlebectomy and sclerotherapy for venous insufficiency and varicose vein disease.

Non-Surgical Orthopaedics, P.C. was established in 1993. Specializing in Spine Care and Pain Management, the practice has developed into one of the premier non-surgical orthopaedic practices in the southeast, and an industry leader for the non-invasive treatment of back and neck pain. Non-Surgical Orthopaedics P.C. offers a wide variety of Non-Surgical options to Treat Pain and Musculoskeletal Injuries. Their goal is to eliminate pain with a strong emphasis on injury prevention and rehabilitation. Services include:

• Pain Management
• Orthopaedic & Sports Injuries
• Workers’ Compensation
• Auto Injuries
• IME's & Disability Evaluations

Video: Non-Surgical Orthopaedics, P.C. | The Overview

Arnold J. Weil, MD has over 29 years of experience specializing in Non-Surgical Orthopaedics and Pain Management. A Diplomat of the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Chief Executive Officer of Non-Surgical Orthopaedics, P.C., one of the premier orthopaedic practices in the metro Atlanta area. 

Dr. Weil's practice focuses on conservative, non-surgical care of orthopaedic injuries, including the spine and extremities, with emphasis on spine rehabilitation, functional restoration, pain management, and ergonomic modifications. He treats patients with back and neck pain and a variety of other orthopaedic conditions. Focusing on acute and chronic pain management through an advanced Non-Surgical approach, 

Dr. Weil has become one of the leading experts on Spine Care and Disability Management. Dr. Weil has been a Clinical Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. An active lecturer, Dr. Weil speaks nationally and internationally on the nonsurgical management of back and neck pain as well as new advances in pain management. He also provides practice management to small-medium sized medical practices.

View Dr. Weil's Expert Witness Profile.

Dr. Farr Ajir, MD, MBA, FACS, CIME, is a Board Certified Neurosurgeon with more than 35 years of experience in the treatment of disorders of the Brain, Spine, and Peripheral Nerves. He is also certified by the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners.

Dr. Ajir has been staff neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente Healthcare Systems.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS),  Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and California Association of Neurological Surgeons. He is a Certified Physician Executive (CPE) with many years of leadership and administrative experience in healthcare delivery.

Litigation Support - As an expert neurosurgeon with decades of experience, Dr. Ajir offers services to attorneys representing plaintiff and defendant. He is certified by the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners (CIME), performs IMEs, and provides expert reviews and medical-legal opinions. Dr. Ajir holds medical licenses in California, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin, and Utah. 

Areas of Expertise: 

Brain

Spine

MRK Medical Consultants provides Medical-Legal Evaluations to help legal and insurance professionals reach appropriate conclusions about their client's situations. MRK provides a wide array of medical experts that offer objective review and analysis of personal injuries. Each stage of the process—research to review, analysis to opinion—is addressed in a comprehensive manner in order to help legal and insurance professionals reach appropriate conclusions about their client’s situations. MRK's prestigious list of more than forty consultants are active clinicians and surgeons, who are all board-certified or eligible in one or more specialties. MRK provides physician experts to the entire State of California, the Reno/Lake Tahoe area, and Las Vegas, and we travel to many areas of the United States. Physical therapy, registered nurses, physician assistant, and billing review consultants are available services MRK provides. Our office physicians are available for telephone review of the merits of your case before you decide to proceed.  

Edward W. Younger, III, M.D., Medical Director of MRK Medical Consultants, specializes in Orthopedic Surgery. He has extensive experience in total joint replacement, as well as reconstructive surgery of the knee, hip, and shoulder. He was instrumental in bringing computer navigation technology to his hospital. He served on the orthopedic trauma staff at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, California, for more than fifteen years and was instrumental in bringing computer navigation technology to that institution. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Society and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery, a member of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and the California Orthopedic Association.

Dr. Michael R. Klein, Jr., M.D., specializes in Orthopedic Surgery and is a founding member and the first Medical Director of Northern California Orthopedic Centers. He was involved with the development of the orthopedic section of the Level II Trauma Center at Mercy San Juan Medical Center. He served as a clinical professor at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center for more than thirty years. He has been a member of the North American Spine Society since 2009 and was awarded the David O. Selby Award in 2020 for his contributions. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and a member of the American Medical Association and the California Medical Association. He retired from the USAF in 1998 after being on active duty during the Vietnam War, and he was activated for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. 

MRK's Areas of Expertise:

Moelleken Plastic Surgery offers Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery to clients in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. Procedures are available for the body, breast, and face, and include signature and non-invasive treatments.

Principal, Brent Moelleken, MD, FACS is a Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon practicing in Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara. Double board certified, he received his training at Harvard University, Yale University, UCSF, and UCLA. Dr. Moelleken is one of three specialty-trained surgeons in the world to complete the year-long Aesthetic Surgery Fellowship at UCLA. He is an Attending Surgeon and Associate Clinical Professor in the Division of Plastic Surgery at UCLA, where he often performs surgeries and teaches residents. Here, he specializes in patients diagnosed with skin cancers in the facial area who require complex, artful reconstructions. 

Dr. Moelleken has innovated various procedures including LiveFill®, autologous fat-fascial grafts; the USIC® & LUSIC® cheeklifts, short incision cheeklifts; the 360 Facelift®, a comprehensive natural appearing facelift procedure; and the Hybrid Tummy Tuck®, a short incision tummy tuck for fit moms. For his expertise, Dr. Moelleken has been selected by Marquis’ Who’s Who in America’s Top Plastic Surgeons in Los Angeles, LA Magazine’s “Top Doctors in Los Angeles”, and is on numerous Top Doctors Lists including Vogue Magazine’s “Top 10 Plastic Surgeons in America”. He has appeared on numerous local and national television segments including Extreme Makeover, as a featured member of the “Extreme Team”; CNN, Extra, BBC, Oprah, E! Entertainment, Discovery Health Channel, MTV, MSNBC, NBC, CBS and numerous local television programs and many print venues including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, People Magazine (2 cover stories), and numerous national and international print stories. He is frequently featured in European and Asian television segments including programs in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and numerous Spanish speaking channels in South and Central America.

View Dr. Moelleken's Expert Witness Profile.

Milliman’s Tampa Office provides a variety of Health Insurance, Health Care services, and Pharma consulting services to law firms, health plans, insurance companies, HMO’s, Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans, hospitals and other providers, employers and government agencies. Stuart Rachlin and other staff are experienced actuaries and related consultants.  

We provide support to our clients with all types of health related services including Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug plans (MAPD), Part D plans (PDP), ACA plans, medical, dental, long-term care, Medicare supplement & critical illness.

We assist clients nationwide with forensic actuarial work, rate filings, regulatory compliance, reserve projections, valuations, employee benefit analysis and design, mergers and acquisitions, claim cost analysis, and fee schedule analysis.

These health care services are used in litigation relating to:

• Life care planning
• Contract development and fee schedule analysis
• Pricing & Underwriting
• Senior Services
• New benefit plan design

William Santoro, MD is Board Certified in Addiction Medicine and board eligible in Family Medicine. His professional consultant services are utilized by Pharmaceutical companies to educate doctors on why and how to use medication for substance use disorders. Dr. Santoro also gives talks and seminars to groups on all aspects of addiction medicine.

In addition to being the Chief of the Section of Addiction Medicine at Tower Health System, he was the Medical Director at the Reading Hospital & Medical Center detoxification and rehabilitation program for 36 years. He was also the Medical Director for a Methadone Treatment facility for 22 years where he was responsible for all admission physical examinations and for prescribing methadone to approximately 950 opiate dependent patients.

Dr. Santoro is the Addictionist on staff at The Reading Hospital & Medical Center within the Department of Family & Community Medicine. He is consulted by hospitalists to care for patients admitted to the hospital with addiction complicating their condition. Dr. Santoro runs an outpatient program utilizing buprenorphine and naltrexone maintenance for over 300 patients. With a special interest in Sports Medicine, in 2001, he served as a volunteer physician for the U.S. Olympic Training Team in Lake Placid, New York. 

Professional Services:

• Consultant speaker for Forrest Pharmaceuticals. Responsible for teaching physicians about using Campral for alcohol dependence, 2005 to 2007
• Consultant speaker for Indivior (formerly Rickett-Benckiser). Mentoring program to teach physicians how to appropriately use Suboxone and Sublocade  for opioid use disorder, 2005 to present
• Consultant speaker for Pfizer Labs. Responsible for teaching physicians how and why to use Chantix for tobacco addiction, 2007 to present

View William Santoro's Expert Witness Profile.

Dr. Mayer is an independent consultant and scholar that (for identification only) holds the position of Visiting Fellow in Human Flourishing,  Harvard University. He has been a full-time tenured professor with recent appoints in statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, biomedical informatics, public health and medicine (psychiatry). He held various titles including, Professor (Part-time), Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Affiliated Professor, Mayo Clinic/ASU joint program in Biomedical Informatics, a member of the Research Staff at Mayo Clinic, and Professor at Arizona State University. 

Dr. Mayer continues to do research and mentor young physicians and medical students while doing a limited amount of consulting in epidemiology, biostatistics, statistics, observation studies and clinical trials. His consulting projects often focus on model development, execution and inferences. He is one of the few MD/PhD epidemiologists. He led a  group of 6000 physicians and epidemiologists that reviewed the science of COVID-19 

Sajid R. Khan, MD, is a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician with over 15 years of experience working in a variety of settings from inner-city level 1 trauma centers serving 100,000 patients per year to 3-bed rural Eds. Dr. Khan has served as a Medical Director, Oral Boards Examiner, and member of the Honor Council. He is ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support), ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support), and PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) certified. Dr. Khan is a member of AOA (the only national medical honor society in the world) and served as an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

A published author, Dr. Khan has written a number of books including, The Ultimate Emergency Medicine Guide, a comprehensive review book that is the highest-rated and most up-to-date text for Emergency Medicine physicians preparing to certify.

Litigation Support - Dr. Khan offers expert witness services to attorneys representing plaintiff and defendant. Licensed in Kansas, Missouri, Georgia, and Texas, he complies with the ACEP Expert Witness Guidelines and will provide an honest and unbiased opinion on Emergency Medicine Medical Malpractice and Negligence cases. Dr. Khan is available for consultation, chart review, and expert testimony.

Areas of Expertise:

Joel L. Kent, MD, is an expert in all realms of Pain Medicine and has focused expertise in the prescribing and oversight of opioid analgesics. His specialties include acute and chronic pain management, opioid analgesics, interventional pain management therapies, spinal cord stimulation, intrathecal drug delivery, RSD/CRPS and low back pain.

Dr. Kent has provided expert case reviews and testimony for over twenty years.  The majority of his expert work has focused on the standard of care in the practice of Pain Medicine and the use of opioid analgesics.  Dr. Kent has provided expert case opinions in Federal and State civil courts.  He has provided defense support to the US Department of Justice in two cases.  He has served as an expert witness and case reviewer for both Maryland and New York State.  Dr. Kent assisted the District Attorney of New Jersey in prosecuting a case of unlawful prescribing of controlled substances.  He has provided expert case review and litigation support to health insurance carriers seeking restitution for fraudulent expenses related to opioid therapy.  

Over the course of his career, Dr. Kent has developed particular expertise surrounding the use of opioid analgesics.  He has provided over 50 lectures to other physicians regarding the safe and proper use of these medications.   He has been recognized as an expert in both State and Federal Court in cases related to opioid therapy.  He has served on advisory boards helping craft regulatory policies related to opioid medication.  All these accomplishments attest to Dr. Kent’s high level of expertise in the complex and evolving realm of opioid therapy. 

Primary area of expertise: Pain Medicine

Expert consulting experience:

• Authored over 50 expert case reports
• Participated in over 25 depositions
• Testimony experience in civil trials and professional hearings
• Provides litigation support and expert testimony in plaintiff and defense cases

Professional experience:

• Over 25 years of experience in Pain Medicine
• Triple Board Certified
• Practice Director of University Multi-Disciplinary Pain Management Practices from 1998 to 2017
• Program Director of a Multi-Disciplinary Pain Management Fellowship Training Programs from 1998 to 2015
• Professor of Anesthesiology, Palliative Care, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at University of Rochester School of Medicine
• Lectures extensively and published 

Kevin Kucko, MAPT, ATC is a licensed Physical Therapist with over 23 years of experience. His specialty areas include Work-injury Reduction, Outpatient Services Development, and Physical Rehabilitation. 

Background Experience - Mr. Kucko began his career as an athletic trainer working with athletes from college through the NFL. He quickly focused on accelerating recovery times while rehabilitating orthopedic injuries. In 1995, he completed his Masters’ degree in Physical Therapy. Since that time, he has served as Department Director at various rehabilitation facilities throughout the east. 

Litigation Support - With over 13 years of experience performing Functional Capacity Evaluations, Mr. Kucko has helped hundreds of clients resolve cases with the best possible outcome. He provides services to attorneys representing both Plaintiff and Defense. Kevin Kucko offers meticulous review of medical records in preparation for trial and depositions. For cases where therapy and physical rehabilitation are involved, he sets the foundation by explaining medical conditions and interventions in a clear and concise manner that jurors understand. Mr. Kucko has been deposed and/or testified 14 times since 2010. 

Areas of Expertise:

Joseph W. Burke, MD, board certified, actively participating Diagnostic Radiologist with over 18 years of experience. Dr. Burke has practiced for the last 16 years at Reading Health system which has one of the busiest Emergency Departments on the East Coast and is a Level 2 Trauma Center.

Dr. Burke is a frequent presenter at weekly Tumor, Trauma, Thoracic, and Gastrointestinal Conferences. He served as Chief of the Ultrasound department for several years and currently sits on his group Board of Directors. He offers teaching services, educating radiology technology students, medical students, and residents.

Litigation Support - Dr. Burke provided Medical-Legal forensic case review for attorneys in numerous cases. He has extensive experience in the interpretation of Neurologic and Body Imaging studies and has read in excess of 250,000 images including MRIs, X-Rays, CT Scans, and ultrasounds. Dr. Burke's services are available to counsel representing plaintiff and defendant and include medical record review, written reports, deposition, arbitration, and trial testimony as needed.

Radiology and Diagnostic Radiology Areas of Expertise:

Current Memberships and Affiliations:

• American Medical Association
• Pennsylvania Medical Society
• American College of Radiology
• Radiological Society of North America
• Eastern Radiological Society
• Pennsylvania Radiological Society