Medical Illustrators as a Member of the Medical-Legal Team
Posted by Trisha Haszel Kreibich on Thu, Sep 24, 2009 @ 12:12 PM
A very effective way of increasing the effectiveness of expert
testimony is by enhancing focus, understanding, and recall by teaming
the testifying expert with a qualified medical illustrator, experienced
in preparing legal graphics (illustrations, animations, models, etc.).
By working together, the medical knowledge and oral skills of the
expert can be supported by expertly created medical graphics that
greatly clarify complicated anatomical, physiological, and medical
subtleties. Together they result in much more effective communication
with the decision makers than if verbal testimony or the graphics were
used alone (one mode of communication used alone without being
supported by the other). In addition, during a period of hours or days
of listening to arguments that are typically only verbal, decision
makers grasp the opportunity to focus on visuals in the form of
illustrations, photographs, models, and/or animations. In fact,
information is generally better processed if jury members and other
triers of fact can have information presented in a multimodal fashion
(i.e. combinations of simultaneous auditory, visual, and tactile
stimuli).
The effectiveness of visuals is supported throughout our society by
such common phrases as “A picture is worth a thousand words”, and
“Seeing is believing.” In addition, numerous manuscripts refer to
studies substantiating that recall is greatly increased when the verbal
message is supported by visual images. Typically these studies have
shown that after varying periods of time information that was delivered
by a combination of voice supported by visuals was recalled at a
significantly higher percentage than the same message delivered by
voice alone.
References
DeBoth, C. J., & Dominowski, R. L. Individual differences in learning: Visual versus
auditory presentation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1978; Aug 70 (4): 498-503
McCall, J., & Rae, G. Relative efficiency of visual, auditory and combined modes of
presentation in learning of paired-associates. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1974; June (38) : 955-958.
Multimodal Learning Through Media: What the Research Says. Cisco Web site. http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf. Accessed August 19, 2008.
© MediVisuals, Inc. - Permission to use any image (or parts thereof) posted on this blog in depositions, demand packages, settlement hearings, mediation, trial, and/or any other litigation or non-litigation use can be obtained by contacting MediVisuals at www.medivisuals.com – otherwise copyright laws prohibit their use for those or other purposes.