2007年VOA标准英语-US Lawyer Finds Medical Experts in India

By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
12 July 2007

An American lawyer has tapped medical experts in India to help with legal cases in the United States. Mike O'Sullivan reports, it is part of a growing trend in the outsourcing of professional services.

Dorothy Clay Sims

Dorothy Clay Sims handles cases against medical insurers that refuse to pay for treatments that her clients say they deserve. She also represents plaintiffs who claim they are suffering from pain or a disability because of an accident.

Opposing lawyers often call on medical experts, and Sims, as a medical layperson, needs help from a doctor just to understand the testimony¹. The expert advice could cost her client one-thousand dollars an hour, or even more.

Sims has reduced that cost by hiring medical experts in India for a fraction of the price, and she makes the service available to other American lawyers through an Internet-based business called MD in a Box. The U.S. lawyers pay $90 an hour for the medical consulting.

The process works through a real-time link to an Indian doctor by computer. Sims describes a typical case in which a U.S. orthopedic surgeon disputes her client's claims in an American courtroom.

"I have my computer with me, and my doctor in India is listening to the orthopedic surgeon the whole time, through a microphone plugged into my laptop," said Dorothy Clay Sims. "He is then sending me instant messages saying, "that is not true. It is actually such and such or so and so." And I look down at my screen and I will just say exactly what the doctor said from India."

Sims got the idea for the business while visiting India, where she and her husband were doing volunteer work at a hospital.

"And then, my husband got ill and ended up needing a digital x-ray, and he met with a radiologist, got the digital x-ray, and then had a consultation² with another doctor, and the whole bill was $35," she said. "And that is when I realized, 'Oh my gosh, they could help lawyers here in the U.S.'"

Sims assembled a group of doctors in India that has helped on more than 100 U.S. cases.

There are pitfalls³ in any business, especially one that operates on opposite sides of the globe. Sims has encountered problems ranging from cultural misunderstandings to money that disappeared while being processed by an Indian accountant. But she says her web-based consultancy is showing a profit and growing.

Outsourcing expert Kevin Desouza teaches in the Information School at the University of Washington. He says outsourcing to India began with manufacturing and telephone call centers, then moved to high-end services, like the one that Sims offers.

"In the late 1980s to early '90s, companies realized that especially India had a large talent pool of skilled engineers. Almost all of them were computer engineers. They had training in electrical engineering and all of the computational sciences."

As U.S. high-tech⁴ companies began to outsource software design, other companies drew on India's educated, urban labor⁵ pool. Some outsourced administrative⁶ services, such as paralegal and medical research.

Desouza says many U.S. firms are doing payroll⁷ and tax preparation in India and China. He adds that India, with its many engineers and scientists fluent in English, is well positioned to move into technical fields such as biotechnology.

An Indian trade association for the outsourcing industry says revenue from exports of software, services and business outsourcing grew more than 30 percent last year, and should reach $40 billion in the current fiscal⁸ year.

1 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

2 consultation   

n.咨询；商量；商议；会议

参考例句：

• The company has promised wide consultation on its expansion plans.该公司允诺就其扩展计划广泛征求意见。
• The scheme was developed in close consultation with the local community.该计划是在同当地社区密切磋商中逐渐形成的。

3 pitfalls   

（捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误

参考例句：

• the potential pitfalls of buying a house 购买房屋可能遇到的圈套
• Several pitfalls remain in the way of an agreement. 在达成协议的进程中还有几个隐藏的困难。

4 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

5 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

6 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

7 payroll   

n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额

参考例句：

• His yearly payroll is $1.2 million.他的年薪是120万美元。
• I can't wait to get my payroll check.我真等不及拿到我的工资单了。

8 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。