The public library is organized around recurring medical problems: causation, conflicting evidence, favorable findings, record chronology, lay history, severity, work capacity, exposure, and evidentiary limits.
These three pieces are a good introduction to how Valor approaches causation, case selection, and physician independence.
Choose the strongest medical pathway and explain why weaker alternatives do not carry the opinion.
Read article →Nexus theory readinessThe assignment should identify the causal link that actually needs a physician answer.
Read article →Define the medical problem first. Sometimes the right answer is more development, a different specialist, or no opinion yet.
Read article →A defensible conclusion has to be capable of losing when better contrary evidence appears.
Read article →Questions counsel should ask about methodology, complete-record review, contrary evidence, scope, and physician accountability.
Read article →First assignment checklistA clear assignment saves time without deciding the medical answer in advance.
Read article →Match the depth of the report to the number and difficulty of the medical questions the record actually creates.
Read article →Compare the testing, factual foundation, chronology, mechanism, and reasoning—not who ordered the opinion.
Read article →Test the reasoning that produced the conclusion and preserve what the examiner got right.
Read article →Decide whether the later C&P adds new evidence, new reasoning, or only a different conclusion before ordering a rebuttal.
Read article →Why incorrect dates, diagnoses, procedures, exposures, or histories can materially change a medical opinion.
Read article →C&P opinion analysisThe useful comparison is between explanations, not signatures or conclusions.
Read article →Identify what VA has already accepted and focus development on the medical or factual element that actually remains disputed.
Read article →Weigh predisposition and competing risk factors without letting them substitute for individualized causal analysis.
Read article →Decide whether one reassuring encounter represents a chronic or episodic condition over time.
Read article →Longitudinal functionThe question is what the examination measured and whether it represents the disputed period.
Read article →Use firsthand observations for chronology and function without turning them into diagnosis or causation.
Read article →Lay statement reviewA useful statement supplies observations that the physician can test against the record.
Read article →Use a directed interview only when the record leaves a material fact the Veteran can answer.
Read article →What Army underreporting research can and cannot support in an individual medical chronology.
Read article →Missing service recordsA gap in documentation changes the work required; it does not supply a medical conclusion.
Read article →Turn a long C-file into a chronology that exposes onset, progression, gaps, contradictions, and competing explanations.
Read article →Reconstruct sparse years without assuming either continuity or absence of symptoms.
Read article →Use what a witness can actually observe while keeping diagnosis and medical causation in the physician’s lane.
Read article →Separate diagnosis, medical severity, functional impairment, and rating-related measurements.
Read article →Translate impairment into reliable, repeated, sustainable, and safe work function.
Read article →Separate presumptions and population-level association from individualized medical causation.
Read article →Use ATSDR evidence and presumptions without allowing population evidence to substitute for the individual record.
Read article →Michigan physician, Army veteran, former C&P examiner, and owner of Valor Consulting, PLLC in Clare, Michigan.
View physician profile →Six chapters about medicine, military service, science, veterans, and the habit of asking what really happened.
Read the series →Official county documentation of Robert Townsend’s historical medical practice in Traverse City.
View source reference →Begin with the medical question. Records are exchanged after professional contact, ordinarily through PageAI or Dropbox.
