Depending on the employer and the type of legal case requiring a consultant, legal nurse consultant jobs can be quite varied. A legal nurse consultant will, in general, provide her opinion on a medical or health-related issue for a legal case. Working as a legal nurse consultant entails reviewing medical records and testifying as an expert witness in court. She can work for a variety of businesses, including lawyers, insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes, day cares, and pharmaceutical companies.
Legal nurse consultant jobs will typically vary depending on the types of legal cases involved. In the majority of cases, the consultant can help with any case involving health, medicine, or the practice of medicine. A legal nurse consultant may be used in a medical malpractice case to prove or disprove negligence on the part of a nurse or doctor, for example. She may work to prove or disprove the fact that an injury was caused by a vehicle accident in a personal injury case.
Working as a legal nurse consultant often entails collaborating with companies in the pharmaceutical, food, or personal hygiene industries. A professional in this field may be able to assist lawyers, insurance companies, or affected individuals in determining whether or not a specific product was to blame for an injury. She could also work on environmental cases, assisting attorneys in determining the impact of substances like toxic chemicals, asbestos, or lead.
The majority of legal nurse consultant jobs entail reviewing a person’s or a group of people’s medical records. She may also be asked to speak with lawyers about the significance of the records’ information. One of the legal nurse consultant’s responsibilities in some cases is to summarize medical records in layman’s terms.
One of the legal nurse consultant’s responsibilities in some cases, particularly workers’ compensation cases, is to create plans for an injured employee. In those cases, she must comprehend how the injured worker’s job duties will be restricted as a result of the worker’s injury. For example, if a worker’s back is injured, the consultant might devise a plan that prohibits the worker from lifting anything heavier than a certain weight.
Working with lawyers during a trial is one of the most interesting legal nurse consultant jobs. A person in this position can serve as an expert witness, answering questions from both sides of a lawsuit. Alternatively, she could examine medically related testimony and assist lawyers in formulating good trial questions. She may be asked to answer questions in a deposition or assist a lawyer in filling out interrogatory questions in some cases.