Occupational & Environmental Medicine Expert Witness

An Occupational Medicine expert witness is a physician who testifies about work-related illness, injury, disability, and toxic exposures. Occupational & Environmental Medicine, sometimes abbreviated “OEM,” or simply “Occupational Medicine,” is a Board-Certified preventive medicine specialty focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of work-related illness, injury, and toxic exposures. By focusing on direct patient care, injury prevention, rehabilitation, disability management, investigations, evaluations, biostatistics, and policy, OEM specialists are physicians who play an invaluable role in today’s complex workplace.  An experienced and credentialed physician may serve as Occupational Medicine expert witness.

To become an Occupational Medicine specialist, a physician must first complete an accredited residency in Preventive Medicine, Internal Medicine, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, or Family Medicine, and then complete an additional 2-year fellowship in Occupational Medicine. Candidates may then be eligible for Board Certification by the American Board of Preventive Medicine with a specialty certificate in Occupational Medicine. 

Worker health is a frequent focus of litigation, and one common theme concentrates on causal associations between employee illness and workplace exposure. While physical exposure to asbestos, benzene, and ethylene oxide tend to dominate the news, employees are routinely in contact with myriad hazards that may be ergonomic (e.g. postural), environmental (e.g. temperature, noise), biological (e.g. mold, fungus, animal), organizational (e.g. sexual harassment, intense stress), or chemical. Workers afflicted by malignancy naturally wonder whether their job caused cancer, and the association between employment hazards and the development of various cancers is an area of intense focus and litigation.  These questions are readily addressed by an Occupational and Environmental Medicine expert.