4th AIDC Congress
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
September 9-12, 2012

At the AIDC held in Madrid in September 2010, the AIDC Board of directors entrusted Canada for the organization of the 4th International Congress, with the title: “Ethics of the medical expertise”.

The main target of this congress, structured in invited lectures and free communications, is to establish performance standards and protocols to set a reference in our expertise work in Congress. For further information I recommend you to visit our web page at www.aidc2012.org.

In order to achieve this, a high participation of Associations, Societies and Professionals interested in injury assessment is required and we think that with your attendance, we can do it.

Please note that on Sunday September 9, 2012, ABIME will run an 8 hour workshop on AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, 6th Ed. A Training Course by American Board of Independent Medical Examiners (ABIME), with possibility to write the ABIME examination the same evening.

Summer2012 Session Exam Set Date-Sunday August 12, 2012 starting at 12noon until 3pm EST

In 4 months from now, the world meeting of medical experts (AIDC2012) will meet for the 1st time in North America, in Montreal, from September 9 to 12, 2012. If IMEs are part of your practice, you should consider participating. You can browse through our website, www.aidc2012.org and if not done already, you can register or submit an abstract on line. Drs. Rondinelli and Ranavaya, editors of the 6th edition of the AMA guide of permanent impairments will lead the discussion on trends and research on impairment rating. We hope you will join us in September.

• AIDC 2012, Montreal, Quebec September 9 - 12, 2012

CSME, the Canadian Society of Medical Evaluators, will make, in the next few months, an offer to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, to create an AFC (Area of Focused Competence) diploma in medicolegal expertise. Canada is catching up with the European Community, which is harmonizing regulations regarding certification, maintenance of competence, and recertification already in force in the different European Countries.

Dr Sestier was an invited lecturer in San José, Costa-Rica, at the “Medical Travel Summit 2012”, on medical tourism, gathering 400 attendees. Dr. Sestier’s lecture (“Canada: an opportunity for the medical travel market”) has been added to course MMD6222-A7.

The very early bird discounted registration fee for AIDC2012 (the world meeting of medical experts, see www.aidc2012.org), just ended; at this time 43 registrants from 6 different countries took advantage of this discounted rate and were already registered.

Dr Sestier was an invited lecturer at the ABIME (American Board of Independent Medical Examiners) workshop given in Orlando, Florida, March 9-11. Dr. Sestier gave a 90 min capsule on “Detection of exaggeration and deception during an IME” during the workshop entitled “Building a successful IME/expert Witness Practice, given by Dr Ranavaya. This lecture has been added to the lecture MMD6220-A13.

Dr Sestier was invited for a round-table organized by the Bareau de Montréal, on the reform of the judiciary procedures, regarding the role of experts, the independence of the experts, and the coming expansion of one sole expert, chosen by both parties in Quebec Courts.

Dr Sestier was an invited lecturer at AIMAVIII, the annual meeting of the Asian Insurance Medicine Association, gathering 450 attendees with lectures from the best lecturers of the large international Re-insurance companies. Dr Sestier’s lecture was entitled “Insurance Medicine, a web-based curriculum from University of Montreal; adaptation for Indian or Chinese Insurance Medical officers”. This lecture has been added to the lecture MMD6232-A1.

Upcoming International Conferences on Insurance Medicine

• Link-E Newsletter Fall 2011 Intl Conferences on Insurance Medicine

IAFS2011, In Madeira, Portugal

From September 12 to 16, 2011, more than 1,700 delegates from 109 different countries met for 3 concomitant scientific meetings: IAFS, the 19th world meeting of the International Association of Forensic sciences, MAFS, the 5th meeting of the Mediterranean Academy of Forensic Sciences, and the WPMO, the 9th triennial meeting of the World Police Medical Officers. Every day, lectures of interest for medical experts were presented.

On September 14, Dr. Rex Ferris, from New Zealand, gave an overview of Errors and Pitfalls in expert testimony; he commented on 3 UK scandals, involving Dr. Bernard Splisbury, Dr. Gene Morrisson and later Dr. Health, experts fallen in disgrace because of poorly founded opinions, having led to miscarriages of justice; the former even committed suicide in 1947, at the time judges began to express concern about his dogmatic unbending attitude in court; the later had been subject to disciplinary charges. He then presented the cases of Dr. Mark Page in Australia and Dr. Charles Smith in Canada. He insisted on the New Zealand code of conduct for medical experts, highlighting the duty to Court of the expert and his duty to confer an unbiased objective opinion without any selection of data. Mr. Jeffrey Manishen, ex Ontario attorney general, recommended to read Justice Kaufman’s article, entitled “Wrongful convictions, lessons earned: the Canadian experience” (Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, October 2006). He presented in details the recommendations of the Goudge inquiry, following Dr. Charles Smith wrongful opinions in 12/20 of his cases concluding to guilt (www.goudgeinqiry.ca). Mrs. Judith Fordham from Australia concluded the session with more expert misleading opinions from Australian Courts.

On September 15, a keynote lecture was given by Dr. Michael Pollanen, from Toronto on “Quality Insurance in Forensic Pathology”, giving details on the Ontario Forensic Pathology Services reform, following Dr Smith’s case; he insisted on the necessity of a proper training with the creation of a Royal College subspecialty in Forensic Pathology. Dr Pollanen also gave details on the new guidelines for peer review of all homicides reports as well as well as for reports dealing with children less than 5 years of age. He concluded with the results of their first internal audit regarding their own medicolegal reports, and insisted on the quality control and code of Ethics developped by their services. Several specialized sessions of this meeting also covered the field of Ethics, Quality Insurance and solving problems related to errors in medicolegal reports.

On September 16, a whole session was devoted to the Forensic Evaluation of Permanent Impairment Rates, with lectures on the AMA guide (Dr Ranavaya), the European Guide (Dr. Hélène Hugues-Bejui), and permanent impairment in the era of ICF (Dr. F. Sestier).

The Canadian summit on ethics and regulation of medicolegal examination was held in Montreal, gathering 65 attendees, including Dr. Robert, representing the federation of Canadian Provincial Colleges of Physicians. The morning session was devoted to Fiduciary Duties & Responsibilities of experts, and Liability of the medical expert. The afternoon session was dedicated to Body of Knowledge, Maintenance of Competence (MOC), Standards and Certification. The PPT. of the 9 lectures is included in course MMD6221-B2.

47e Congrès International Francophone de Médecine Légale
Bordeaux, France

47e Congrès International Francophone de Médecine Légale. Dr Sestier was invited to deliver a lecture entitled: “Medicolegal issues in the sudden death of children and teen-agers”.

Dr Sestier was invited for a round table on long term care Insurance, during the annual scientific meeting for AMCAP, the French associations of Insurance medical Officers.

CLIMOA
Toronto, Ontario

Dr Sestier participated to the scientific session of CLIMOA and presented a lecture entitled “Health Care Needs in the Next Four Decades: Should We Be Alarmed?”

From the President's Desk:

As I embark upon my term as President of the Canadian Society of Medical Evaluators, I have thought carefully about some of the things that I would like to achieve over the course of 12 months.

As an organization dedicated to excellence and standards in the field of Medico-legal expertise, I feel that it is vital for CSME to have a strong voice. Increasing membership across the country is a primary goal. I encourage practitioners of independent medical evaluation to become full members of CSME and I encourage you to promote CSME membership to your colleagues. If each one of you recruits one new member, our membership will double! Our voice and influence as an organization grows louder with numbers!

Dr Sestier was a guest lecturer at a meeting organized by University Paris VIII for the future launch in March 2012 of a formal web-based program for French medical experts, with certification, maintenance of competence and periodic recertification, at the request of the French “Cour de Cassation”(or Supreme Court), to harmonize competence of medical experts across the European Community.