To help biological
insights reach patients, Hieter co-founded, in 2014, the Canadian Rare Diseases: Models and Mechanisms National Network, a consortium that connects clinician scientists identifying gene mutations in patients that cause rare diseases to basic scientists analyzing the corresponding genes in model organisms.
When
patients make claims of negligence the process of discovering whether negligence occurred requires investigating medical records, interviewing the involved parties (through sworn depositions), finding experts, sorting out conflicts between the opinions of experts, reinvestigating the records and testimony as new
insights are uncovered and then
reaching some kind of consensus, if possible, about what actually occurred and whether those facts meet the definition of legal negligence.