Epidemiology Expert Witnesses: 6

Vera Dolan is an epidemiologist with over 30 years of experience in the life and health insurance industries. She is one of the leading mortality experts in the life insurance industry. She writes underwriting manuals and policy and procedure manuals for life and health insurance companies.

Vera has testified in both state and federal court, and has been retained in over 200 cases since 2006 for plaintiffs and defense on an equal basis. She is very credible testifying in deposition and on the stand.

* Life expectancies that are personalized and accurate to the standards of the life insurance and life settlement industries. Addresses the cases when life expectancies that are simply taken from a life table or estimated by a doctor, actuary or biostatistician are too long, too short, insufficient or not credible. Addresses the cases when a complete insight into the individual's medical conditions and/or personal history of high-risk behaviors is needed to assist the judge or jury in their decision. This information often decides the case, see article for details.

* Expert in bad faith/wrongful denial of life/health insurance claims.

* Expert in life/health insurance underwriting material misrepresentation.

* Expert in medical risk assessment and underwriting issues.

* Expert in life insurance underwriting policies and procedures.

* Expert in epidemiology. Previous cases include infectious diseases, occupational and environmental exposures, pesticides and tobacco.

* Approved life expectancy expert with the U.S. Department of Justice.

* Active consultant to the life insurance industry conducting cohort mortality studies, and writing underwriting and policy and procedure manuals.

* Over 100 articles published on mortality research and underwriting.

* Friendly, clear, concise, objective and quantitative.

* There is no charge for the initial phone consultation.

* There is no charge for travel time.

Elite Medical Experts is a physician-led team that hand selects nationally recognized Professors of Medicine and Surgery as expert witnesses. Each expert is a board-certified specialist with a busy clinical practice and impeccable credentials.  From Stanford to Yale, and from every healthcare specialty and field, Elite aligns leading specialists from top-tier medical universities.

Actionable benefits to our clients:

     ♦  Zero-Risk Guarantee:  Approve the expert or we'll refund the fee.

     ♦  Avoid costly mistakes with real-time access to our physician-led Strategy Team.

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     ♦  Work directly with hand-selected university experts screened for your specific case.

     ♦  No database or advertised experts - we plan for discovery and transparency at every stage.

Please call [877] 670-8625 to speak directly with our in-house Case Strategy Team. There's no charge for phone or video consultation consultation and we'll outline a a strategic plan for moving forward.

Dr. Burton Bentley II, M.D., FAAEM
CEO, Elite Medical Experts

Areas of Expertise:

Anesthesiology Bariatric Surgery Cardiology Cardiothoracic Surgery Critical Care COVID-19 (SARS Cov-2; Coronavirus) Dermatology and Aesthetic Dermatology Ears, Nose & Throat (Otolaryngology) Emergency Medicine Endocrinology Epidemiology Family Medicine Gastroenterology General Surgery Gerontology Gynecologic Oncology Gynecology Hand Surgery Hospital Medicine (Hospitalist) Infectious Disease Intensive Care (ICU) Medicine Internal Medicine Interventional Radiology Laparoscopic Surgery Maternal-Fetal Medicine

Neonatology Nephrology Neurology Neurosurgery Obstetrics Oncology Ophthalmology Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Orthodontics Orthopedic (Orthopaedic) Surgery Pathology Pediatric Surgery Pediatrics Perinatology Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PMR) Podiatry Psychiatry Pulmonology (Pulmonary Medicine) Radiology Rheumatology Sports Medicine Toxicology Transplant Surgery Trauma Surgery Urology Vascular Surgery

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Ernest P. Chiodo, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., M.S., C.I.H. is a physician, attorney, Certified Industrial Hygienist (C.I.H), and biomedical engineer. Dr. Chiodo is board certified in the specialties of Internal Medicine, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and Public Health and General Preventive Medicine. Dr. Chiodo served as the Medical Director of the City of Detroit and was the chief physician in charge of measures designed to protect the public health of over one million persons. He has also been the lead expert witness in a number of high profile cases including serving as the lead expert witness in a mass toxic tort case for Gerry Spence.

Areas of Expertise:

Toxicology

Epidemiology

Industrial Hygiene

Mold

Asbestos

Benzene

Biomedical Engineering

Accident Reconstruction

Electrocution

Building Related Disease

Biomechanics

Bed Bugs

James H. Reich, MD, MPH, is a board-certified Forensic Psychiatrist with extensive civil psychiatry experience who has done hundreds of evaluations.

After getting his MD from the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver, Dr. Reich earned his MPH at Yale University and did his psychiatric residency at UC Davis. Dr. Reich has held academic positions at Yale, Iowa, Harvard, and Brown Universities.  Currently, he has teaching appointments at the professor level at both UCSF and Stanford University. Throughout his career, he has published over a hundred peer-reviewed publications. 

Litigation Support - Dr. Reich’s services are available for civil and some criminal law cases. Clients are assured of his personal dedication to each case. He does high quality research, expert evaluations, writes a solid report, and will testify well. Dr. Reich has been deposed over 50 times.

Areas of Expertise:

Antisocial Personality Disorder Antisocial Behavior Sadistic Personality Disorder Borderline Personality Disorder Competency to Stand Trial Depression Fitness for Duty Generalized Anxiety Disorder Psychiatry Malpractice

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Panic Disorder Anxiety and Alcohol Personality Disorders Post Traumatic Stress Disorder / PTSD Psychiatric Disability Morbidity of Dependent Personality Disorder Social Anxiety Disorder Somatoform Disorder - Hypochondriasis Suicide

Presentations - As faculty at the Stanford Forensic Fellowship program, Dr. Reich has given two talks to the group. On October 27, 2023, he presented, "What Gets Psychiatrists and other Medical Professionals into Problems with the Law or Regulators." On January 19, 2024, he presented a talk on Psychiatric Disability to the same group. Dr. Reich is also supervising a fellow on his project on competency issues in older physicians.

Joel Gagnier, PhD, is an experienced clinical Epidemiologist with over 25 years of experience in the assessment of general and specific causation in cases of Exposures to Chemicals and Medical Interventions, and the Risks of Disease or Adverse Events. He is a tenured professor with over 20 million dollars in funding and over 210 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Gagnier has methodologic expertise in human subject epidemiologic research (and more generally epidemiology), clinical research, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as well as basic science research, statistics and biostatistics  

Litigation Support - Dr. Gagnier is an expert at finding the relevant literature, assessing the quality of the evidence, extracting the data, performing meta-analyses, finding the magnitude of the association, doing a causation assessment (Bradford hill analysis) and coming to final conclusions. He has been an expert on 15 separate cases, been deposed 10 times, and testified 4 times.

Areas of Expertise:

Epidemiology Health Risk Assessment Environmental Medicine Toxicity Heavy Metals Glyphosate-based Herbicides Pesticides and Herbicides

Volatile Organic Compounds (ethylene oxide, benzene, PFOS/PFAS) Vaccines Medical Devices (hip and knee implants) Natural Health Products Nutritional Supplements Nutrition Patient Safety

James M. Wheeler, MD, MPH, JD, magna cum laude in Biology / Psychology from Harvard, is an OB/GYN trained at Baylor, with subspecialty training in Reproductive Endocrinology / Infertility at Yale. He is also a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale, focusing upon clinical epidemiology and biostatistics and health policy. He also earned his MPH at Yale majoring in Biostatistics, minoring in Maternal/Child Health. He graduated from the University of Houston Law Center with a JD in 2005, and was invited to join the Health Law division there. He has completed ADR training, having completed training programs separately in mediation, and arbitration.

Dr. Wheeler is a former national officer of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and served on several of their health policy committees including the Health Care Commission and the Hysterectomy Committee. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers on a wide array of topics in ob/gyn, with a particular emphasis on methodology. He has given over 200 invited lectures to ob/gyns, reproductive endocrinologists, radiologists, midwives, nurses, surgical technologists, law students et al. He sees himself first and foremost as a caregiver, and second to only that, as a teacher.

Dr. Wheeler has consulted in several hundred medicolegal matters for over 20 years, mostly in ob/gyn, but including family practice, internal medicine and several of its subspecialties, general surgery and several of its subspecialties, and dermatology. He has been a testifying expert before the FDA for drugs and devices, and has testified before U.S. Congressional staffers on health policy issues. He reviews for attorneys from both plaintiff and defense bars, as well as insurance companies (e.g. Pro-Assurance), and health plans (e.g. Harvard Community Health Plan). He has helped with Board of Medicine reviews, and constructing/defending class action suits. The combination of his training in medicine, basic and clinical research, clinical epidemiology, biostatistics and law make him a uniquely qualified person to review the complex issues of medicolegal cases.

Dr. Wheeler is a qualified first-reviewer, and a convincing expert during testimony. He has never been excused from a case as insufficiently expert.

Areas of expertise:

Gynecologic surgery Forceps / Vacuum Uses/ Complications Fetal Stress vs. Distress Cesarean vs. Vaginal Birth Shoulder Dystocia Pregnancy induced Hypertension / HELLP Syndrome Hysterectomy: Indications and Complications

Preterm Labor Incompetent Cervix Endometriosis Pelvic Adhesions Leiomyomata Uteri Infertility Advanced Reproductive Technology (IVF)