Dr Mir, could you explain your role as a Consultant Psychiatrist and an Expert Witness? What does a typical day look like for you? I currently work as a NHS General Adult Psychiatrist leading a big Community Mental Health team in a deprived area of Sheffield. A typical day is varied and can include outpatient clinics, home visits, Mental Health Review Tribunals, and chairing Multidisciplinary team meetings. I also teach medical students and supervise Psychiatric trainees. I am very passionate about this. We have a duty to pass on our knowledge and experience to the next generation of doctors and Psychiatrists. We have to do this well as one day, we will inevitably have to pass on the baton to them. We might even need their expertise ourselves one day! My Expert Witness work has, up to now, been done in the evenings and weekends though that is due to change as I will be going part-time in the NHS in September 2023. My appointments are face-to-face or virtual. I will typically see two or three cases an evening. There may also be a teleconference with a Barrister to do. The pandemic definitely changed how we work. We all had to adapt, myself included. It has meant that about 70% of my current Medicolegal examinations are virtual. This has not affected the quality of my reports and has made me more accessible to clients across the UK. Report dictation and checking are mainly done at weekends. I receive excellent administrative support from Parkhead Consultancy, Sheffield, who manage my private work. Can you elaborate on your work concerning clinical negligence and personal injury cases? How do you approach these cases, and what role does your psychiatric expertise play? I have dealt with all types of personal injury cases over the years. This has included anything from work-related incidents to unprovoked assaults and road traffic accidents. The latter remains the most common type of personal injury case I am instructed on. Clinical negligence cases have included delayed cancer diagnosis, surgical errors, and misdiagnosis of a life-threatening condition. I have a particular interest in Perinatal Psychiatry and birth trauma. As such, I have provided evidence on numerous perinatal cases of mismanaged pregnancy, stillbirth, traumatic instrumental delivery and retained products of conception, to name a few areas. The common theme linking Personal injury and Clinical negligence is trauma, something Psychiatrists are welltrained in identifying at the emotional level. Being involved in a serious road traffic accident that leaves you paralysed or being told you have advanced breast cancer that was missed in its early stages on a mammogram two years earlier, may have significant psychological consequences. The role of the Psychiatric expert is vital in identifying and quantifying psychiatric injuries whose toll can be no less than that of physical injury. I am naturally passionate about ensuring that psychiatric injury is given its due in the Medico-legal setting, especially as in the NHS we have sadly still An Exclusive Interview with Dr Nusrat Mir 16 United Kingdom
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