Importance of Medical Evidence in Personal Injury Claims

When a person makes a claim for personal injury, the medical evidence is the foundation of the claim. The subjective complaints as to how the injury has affected the person’s life are important to support the claim, but without sound, objectively given medical evidence, your claim will not go far. Medical evidence is generally obtained by way of expert opinions from the physicians and therapists who treat and assess you. These experts assess both your subjective symptoms (my arm hurts) , as well as their objective findings resulting from their physical examination of you and various tests (x-rays etc.). Often, (particularly in the case of common soft-tissue injuries), the doctor is faced with a lack of objective evidence. In these cases, to a large extent, the doctors are relying on the truthfulness of their patients when assessing the subjective complaints. It is therefor critically important to your claim, that you be open and candid with your doctors – they must believe you and they are trained to know when a patient is exaggerating or being less than truthful. If your doctor doesn’t believe you, then it will be very difficult if not impossible for him or her to give an expert assessment supporting your injury, and without such an opinion, you do not have a claim.