Family Medicine Expert Allowed to Testify Despite Her Lack of Experience in the Correctional Medical Context
Posted on May 15, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
This litigation revolves around medical care, and the alleged lack thereof, provided to Plaintiff Peter George Noe between fall 2020 and late 2022, while incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary ADMAX in Florence, Colorado.
Defendant filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s retained expert, Dr. Kimberly A. Cullen, MD, arguing that Cullen does not qualify as an expert and that her testimony does not meet the reliability requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
Family Medicine Expert Witness
Kimberly Cullen is a primary care physician and board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine. She attended the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed a three-year family
medicine residency program at Swedish Family Medicine – First Hill in Seattle, Washington in 2018.
Discussion by the Court
Qualification
Defendant first attacked Cullen’s qualifications as an expert, highlighting her limited experience, including no experience in the correctional medical context, and non-practicing status at the time of her deposition.
The Court rejected Defendant’s argument that simply because Cullen has never worked in a correctional setting and because she may have had a brief gap in practicing as a primary care physician she does not qualify as a competent medical expert in this case.
It is true that Cullen not only had several years of experience treating patients, including as a supervising physician, but she also has seen hundreds of patients treated or tested for UTIs and diagnosed and treated patients
with degenerative disc disease, which is probative to the facts of this case.
Reliability
Defendant argued that Cullen’s opinions offered in this case, related to unreasonable delays in the care Noe received, including a failure to suspect a different source for Noe’s symptoms and pain, are unreliable because she does not specifically articulate a community standard of care and is relying on her experience as a young physician.
Cullen clarified in her deposition that her opinions were based on the general
standard of care and practice—the general practice of medicine.
While Cullen’s opinions may be general as to why the Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) fell below the standard of care normally followed by a primary care physician, such as herself, the Court found that her specialized knowledge as a Colorado- licensed physician who is Board certified in Family Medicine would be helpful to the Court in determining the particular issues in this case.
Held
The Court denied the Defendant’s motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s retained expert, Kimberly A. Cullen, MD.
Key Takeaway:
Cullen’s opinions are more likely than not to be helpful and reliable given her review of Noe’s extensive medical records and the application of her knowledge, training, and experience as a primary care physician to the facts of this case.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Noe V. Seroski Et Al |
| Docket Number: | 1:21cv3340 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Colorado |
| Order Date: | May 14, 2025 |
