About
Dr. Finkel is board certified in Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine, and was on the voluntary teaching faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City from 1978 to 2024, serving as Assistant Clinical Professor of GI from 2004 to 2024. He was in private practice from 1978 through February 2024, has published in peer-reviewed journals, and actively taught GI endoscopy at Mount Sinai through 2023. He has testified in both plaintiffs and defense cases, including Federal Court, for more than 35 years. An experienced teacher, he is able to explain complex medical subjects to lay juries in easily understandable terms. Although now retired from the active practice of medicine, he continues to consult and testify in medicolegal cases in states that so permit.
Dr. Finkel testified in the landmark Massachusetts case, Matsuyama v. Birnbaum et al, permitting recovery for a "loss of chance" in a medical malpractice wrongful death action, where a jury found that the defendant physician's negligence deprived the plaintiff's decedent of a less than even chance of surviving cancer.
Dr. Finkel also served as the Gastroenterology consultant on behalf of the Ground Zero First Responders in the World Trade Center litigation settled in 2010, stratifying the severity of GERD due to environmental exposure at Ground Zero. He also provided objective individual assessments used in the determination of disability awards, and testified on behalf of the First Responders with GZ-related GERD who opted out of the Zadroga settlement. William Groner, one of the lead attorneys in the GZ litigation, and author of "9/12 - The Epic Battle of the Ground Zero Responders," with whom Dr. Finkel worked closely, wrote privately: "You were integral to the development of medical causation for GZ dust, and for that, I and thousands of my clients ... are forever grateful."
In 2016, Dr. Finkel served as expert GI consultant for the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit against Daichi Sankyo and Forest Laboratories over GI damages allegedly suffered by patients taking Benicar (olmesartan), settled in 2017 for $300 million.
In addition, Dr. Finkel testified as plaintiff's GI expert in the landmark New Jersey case Ehrlich v Sorokin, in which a defense verdict was initially handed down after the trial judge incorrectly allowed an "informed consent" defense, despite the fact plaintiff did not allege any deviation in the consent or consent process. The decision was reversed on appeal in 2017, establishing NJ case law barring defense counsel from using an informed consent defense where the plaintiff does not plead a lack of informed consent.
In 2023, Dr. Finkel served as expert GI witness for the defense of Mikheil Saakashvili, the first democratically elected president of the Republic of Georgia, a former Soviet satellite state, and testified (By Zoom) in Tbilisi Court in favor of the motion for his release from political imprisonment on the grounds of his ill health.
Dr. Finkel's most recent publication is the chapter, "Esophageal Disorders Related to Medication, Trauma, Infection," in Sands, BE, editor, "Mount Sinai Expert Guide: Gastroenterology," Wiley (2015).