Psychiatric resident is qualified to give expert testimony

Law Reporter, Apr 2003

Psychiatric resident is qualified to give expert testimony.

State tx rel. LCE, _ SW3d _,No. IA-03-051,2003 WL 68043 (Tex. Ct. App. Jan. 9,2003).

A Texas appellate court held that a first-year psychiatric resident who had experience treating mentally ill patients and doing research on psychotropic drugs was qualified to testify as an expert in a commitment proceeding.

Here, a man who believed the rap singer Eminem was trying to kill him was taken into custody by police. Two physicians diagnosed the man as having delusional disorders. A hearing was held to determine if he should be committed to court-ordered mental health care. Qasim, a first-year resident in clinical psychiatry, testified in favor of committing the man. After commitment, the patient appealed, contending that Qasim was not qualified to testify as an expert in psychiatry

Affirming, the appellate court noted that Rule 702 of the Texas Rules of Evidence provides that a party offering an expert witness bears the burden of proving that the witness possesses special knowledge as to the matter in question. In this case, Qasim is a resident in his second month of a four-year program in clinical psychiatry at a university. He was the treating physician, who was called upon to give his opinion on his diagnosis of the patient and to reccommend a course of treatment. The trial court could have found that in addition to receiving a medical degree and passing the requisite exams to become licensed to practice medicine in Texas, Qasim's experience was adequate to make his opinion reliable, the court said.

Qasim had undergone a one-year rotation in psychiatry, family practice, and internal medicine, the court noted. While in his rotation, Qasim estimated that he had examined more than 300 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. He worked as a family practice physician in the same hospital for five years. As many as 40 percent of his patients had medical and psychiatric illnesses. He also has worked on a research program on psychotropic drugs and their effects for six months. While he has not yet been authorized to practice psychiatry as a specialist, under the residency program's supervision he does diagnose patients. Given this experience, the appellate court concluded that it was not an abuse of discretion to admit Qasim as an expert witness.