Questions to Ask a Medical Expert Witness at Deposition
Here is the problem nobody says out loud: you are going to cross-examine a physician about medicine, and you never went to medical school. In a multi-defendant malpractice case it is worse — a single case routinely involves two, three, or four different specialties, each with its own expert, its own literature, and its own vocabulary. You cannot become a cardiologist and a radiologist and an intensivist by deposition day.
What you can do is bring structure. Every guide below is built around concession funnels: chains of leading, one-fact questions that start from propositions no credible expert can refuse and narrow, answer by answer, toward the commitments your case needs. Each guide covers qualifications and scope, the bases-of-opinion lockdown, the specialty's substantive concession chain, closing-the-doors questions — and the classic traps lawyers fall into with that specialty.
Pick the specialty you're deposing
- Cardiology
- Emergency Medicine
- OB/GYN
- General Surgery
- Orthopedic Surgery
- Neurology
- Neurosurgery
- Radiology
- Anesthesiology
- Pediatrics
- Internal Medicine
- Family Medicine
- Oncology
- Gastroenterology
- Pulmonology & Critical Care
- Nephrology
- Dermatology
- Otolaryngology (ENT)
- Ophthalmology
- Plastic Surgery
- Vascular Surgery
- Cardiothoracic Surgery
- Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
These are the generic questions. Your case isn't generic.
The MedLegal AI Examination Builder generates a complete, case-specific concession-funnel roadmap for deposing any medical expert — built from your theory of the case, aware of which side you're on and what kind of witness you're facing, with stop markers, if-they-resist branches, and the doors you should not open. Three free cases, no credit card.
Build my examination → Specialty depo trainersRelated resources
- Examination Builder — case-specific concession-funnel roadmaps, side-aware and witness-type-aware
- Specialty deposition trainers — how the witnesses on the other side get prepped
- Join the MedLegal AI expert network
This page is informational only and is not legal advice. Question banks are generic-case-safe starting points — adapt every question to the facts, the jurisdiction, and your theory of the case.