Medical Practice Management Expert Witnesses: 6

David A.Sugar, MD, is a Board Certified Orthopaedic Surgeon. He has been in practice since 1997. Working as a general Orthopaedic Surgeon, he has treated an extremely wide array of Orthopaedic conditions and injuries.

Dr. Sugar has served as the Managing Partner in a group as large as 11 doctors and worked on the Surgical QI Committee ( currently serves as the Chairman) at the 35th largest hospital in the United States. Dr. Sugar is currently the principal surgeon at Sugar Orthopaedics where they provide surgical and non-surgical treatments for muscular and skeletal problems of all types.

Litigation Support - Dr Sugar has offered expert witness services for attorneys representing plaintiff and defendant for 20 years. His services include independent medical evaluations (IMEs), medical record review, thorough reporting, depositions, and trial testimony. Dr. Sugar's cases have a heavy emphasis on Fractures, Knee, Shoulder, Sports Medicine, and Pediatric Orthopaedics.

Areas of Expertise:

Elliott M. Stein, MD is a Geriatric Psychiatrist with over 45 years of experience caring for the elderly. Dr. Stein is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in General Psychiatry (October, 1979) and Geriatric Psychiatry (April, 1991; Re-Certified, December, 2001, April, 2011, December 2022). He is licensed in California and Florida. Dr. Stein was the Director of Psychiatry at the Jewish Home of San Francisco from 2010-2020, and the Medical Director of their Geriatric Psychiatry Hospital. He has treated older individuals, typically people who have complex combination of psychiatric and medical problems. Dr. Stein has been a Member of the Task Force on Testamentary Capacity and Undue Influence, for the International PsychoGeriatric Association.

Dr. Stein is a Clinical Professor (Voluntary) in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry and a Life Member of the International PsychoGeriatric Association.

He is available to serve as an Expert Witness, do legal and forensic consultation, record review, and assessments concerning Psychiatric issues in Older Individuals. Dr. Stein offers his services to attorneys for both Plaintiff or Defense.

Areas of Expertise:

• Contested Wills and Trusts
• Testamentary Capacity, Undue Influence, Insane Delusions
• Financial Elder Abuse
• Geriatric Competence/Capacity
• Dementia and Delirium, Alzheimer’s Disease
• Geriatric Psychiatry Evaluation and Treatment, Psychiatric Medication, Psychotherapeutic Issues
• Depression and Anxiety Disorders
• Relationship Problems between the Elderly and their Adult Children
• Aging and Mental Disorders
• Geriatric Psychiatry issues in Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Memory Care, Independent and Assisted Living Facilities
• Medicare Psychiatric Services Coding and Documentation

View Dr. Stein's Consulting Profile.

William Santoro, MD is board certified in Addiction Medicine and board eligible in Family Medicine. He is the Chief of the Section of Addiction Medicine at Tower Health and was the Medical Director at the Reading Hospital & Medical Center detoxification/rehabilitation program. Dr. Santoro was also the Medical Director at a Methadone Treatment center  for 22 years, until 2021, where he is responsible 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 and 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 treating over the 300 patients with buprenorphine (Suboxone/Sublocade) or Vivitrol maintenance. With an interest in Sports Medicine in 2001, he served as a volunteer physician for the U.S. Olympic Training Team in Lake Placid, New York.

Dr. Santoro has been deposed more than a dozen times in the past several years. He has testified in court numerous times on behalf of the plaintiff as well as for the defense. He has testified in Federal Court and been involved in cases concerning the pharmaceutical industry.

Areas of Expertise:

• All aspects of Addiction Medicine
• Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)
  • Buprenorphine
  • Naltrexone
  • Methadone
• Dual Diagnosis Pain/Addiction

View Dr. Santoro's Consulting Profile.

As of January 2024: I have been deposed over 150 times and reviewed over 1,000 cases for both defense and plaintiff, including peer review, accidents, and malpractice. 52% defense / 48% plaintiff. I have qualified in Superior Court over 75 times and have never been disqualified on the stand or prior to trial. At least 95% of my time is spent in patient care. 

I can be counted on to be ethical, competent, prepared, analytical, articulate, and persuasive at depositions and court appearances. As of February 2024, there are over 297 published articles, write-ups and lectures in print, radio, and TV. (http://www.expertwitness.dental/)

 I hold two current professorships: UCLA School of Dentistry (Volunteer) & NYU College of Dentistry. Licensed in 42 states to opine on the standard of care, with specific licenses in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and the Northeast as well as a Florida Expert Certification. Graduated NYU 1988; GPR Residency NYU 1989, Lieutenant, United States Navy 1989- 1991; private practice Brentwood, CA since 1991 – serving over 15,000 patients on a fee-for-service basis.

Founder of the non-profit “Homeless Not Toothless” (www.homelessnottoothless.org), which has made it possible for over 124,000 homeless Veterans, women of domestic abuse and foster children to receive over $10 million in pro-bono dental care. 

Member: 

American Academy of Cosmetic Orthodontics: 2013-present, American Dental Association (ADA) since 1991 

Peer Review Committee ADA 1995-2009, 

American Legion 2018 - present

Medical Disciplinary Committee Delta Dental 2000-present; Veteran Administration QME Examiner 2019-present

Expert Witness: Retained in Washington, D.C., and over 25 states as an expert in hospital administration who could render opinion after assessing medical records, hospital policies and procedures, medical staff bylaws and regulations, JCAHO standards, depositions, etc. Served as Expert Witness for Plaintiff and Defense. 

Consultant: Has assisted hospitals and health systems with accelerating their performance improvement efforts. Speaks, writes and consults on ethical issues in health care. 

Background Highlights:

• Consultant, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the health system.
• Executive Director of two academic medical centers: Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, Stanford University Hospital and Clinics at Stanford.
• Past chairman of the national advisory board for the University of Chicago’s Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.
• An author of over 175 publications, he has written articles for USA Today, Health Management Quarterly, Trustee, Health Progress, the Journal of Health Administration Education, Frontiers of Health Services Management, Bioethics Forum, Modern Healthcare, the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Stanford Medicine, and Healthcare Executive among others.
• Co-editor of Management Mistakes in Healthcare: Identification, Correction, and Prevention, published by Cambridge University Press in 2005.
• Co-editor of Managing Ethically: An Executive's Guide, published by Health Administration Press in 2001, and a second edition, Managing Healthcare Ethically: An Executive's Guide was published in 2010.
• Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, a past member of its Leadership Advisory Committee, and a consultant on health care management ethics since 1994.
• Served as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Biomedical Ethics.
• Recipient of American Hospital Association's Award of Honor in 2009 and an Albert Schweitzer Leadership Award in 2012.
• Faculty appointments held at Harvard, UCLA, Stanford, Emory, the University of California, and Seton Hall University.
• Bachelor of Science, Master of Public Health, and Doctor of Public Health degrees are from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ms. Elizabeth D'Alesio has 30 years experience in ICU, including Medical, Surgical and Acute Care. She is ICU certified. She has managed the ICU and telemetry floor which includes bed monitoring. Ms. D'Alesio has also been involved with creating policy/procedure to meet JACHO requirements as well as ongoing recruiting of new ICU staff. She has served on the ethics committee for four years while in management.

Ms. D'Alesio is currently employed at the Reproductive Science Center of Milford and Milford Regional Medical Center where she administers Conscious Sedation, assists physicians with pacemakers, arteriograms and picc lines for septic patients.She currently holds certifications as and Adult Nurse Practitioner and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner,and has recently completed the Kaplan Life Care Planning Course.