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diabetes Medical Opinion Does Not Require A Medical Doctor.
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Guest Morgan
Registered Nurse
§ "A nurse's statement, like a doctor's statement, regarding the possibility of diabetes resulting from his treatment as a POW is sufficient to make the appellant's claim well ground." Goss v. Brown, 9 Vet.App. 109, 115-16 (1996) citing Williams (Willie) v. Brown, 4 Vet.App. 270, 273 (1993) ("[n]Nowhere is it provided in law or regulation that opinions by the examining psychiatrists are inherently more persuasive than that of other competent mental health professionals," there including a registered nurse); Espiritu v. Derwinski, 2 Vet.App. 492, 494 (1992); cf. Jenkins v. United States, 307 F.2d 637, 644 (D.C. CIR.1962) (to qualify as an expert, a person need not be licensed to practice medicine, but just have "'special knowledge and skill in diagnosing and treating human ailments'" (citations omitted)); cf. Black v. Brown, 10 Vet.App. 279, 284 (1997) (limited the value of a nurse's testimony to well ground her husband's claim. In Black, supra, the Court, prior to determining well groundedness, determined that: 1. the nurse did not establish that she had training in cardiology (the claim was service connection of a cardiac condition); nor, 2. had she established that she participated in the treatment of the veteran. Failing these two tests, the Court ruled her testimony could not well ground the case as a trained medical person. Judge Kramer dissented).
MEDICAL TREATISE EVIDENCE
§ A veteran with a competent medical diagnosis of a current disorder may invoke an accepted medical treatise in order to establish the required (medical) nexus29 (for service connection); in an appropriate case it should not be necessary to obtain the services of medical personnel to show how the treatise applies to his case.
Hensley v. West, 212 F.3d 1255, 1265 (Fed.Cir.2000); citing see also Wallin v. West, 11 Vet.App. 509, 514 (1998) (holding that medical treatises can serve as the requisite evidence of nexus).
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