 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Benson v. Tkach3/20/2001
s, we view Dr. Tkach's statement as an extra-judicial admission of negligence. Reasonable persons could conclude from the statement that Dr. Tkach failed to provide Plaintiff's mother with what he considered proper treatment. We hold the trial court abused its discretion in failing to grant Plaintiff's motion to reconsider the grant of summary judgment as to Dr. Tkach and McBride Clinic.
As to the remaining defendants, Bone and Joint Hospital and Healthsouth Rehabilitation Center, the court in Boxberger, 1976 OK 78, 15, 552 P.2d at 374, also stated, quoting Barnett v. Richardson, 1966 OK 101, 4, 415 P.2d 987, 990:
Where an injury is patent, objective rather than subjective, the plaintiff is competent to testify as to the injury, the treatment received therefor, and the reaction of such treatment, and this testimony is sufficient for the jury to render a verdict . . . and no expert medical testimony is necessary.
Similarly, in Turney v. Anspaugh, 1978 OK 101, 20, 581 P.2d 1301, 1307, the court stated, "expert testimony is not required where negligence is so grossly apparent that laymen would have no difficulty in recognizing it." In Turney, a patient who had undergone a hysterectomy later developed abdominal pains, incision discharge, and a lump below the umbilicus. When the surgeon who had performed the procedure dismissed the patient's complaints, she went to another doctor. That doctor x-rayed the patient and discovered that a surgical sponge had been left inside her body.
The plaintiff brought a medical malpractice action against the first surgeon, and the jury rendered a verdict in the plaintiff's favor. On appeal, the surgeon alleged reversible error on the ground that the patient had provided no expert testimony about the proper standard of care the surgeon should have followed in post-operative treatment. In affirming the jury verdict, the court stated:
Here, with the surgeon having just performed a hysterectomy using an abdominal approach, the discovery and noting of a hard lump near the umbilicus, complaints of the patient after the operation, . . . subsequent discovery of the sponge through x-ray and of its removal by another doctor, no use of x-ray post-operatively though a known technique for detecting a sponge remaining internally after an operation, only common knowledge and experience is required to understand and judge any lack of care by the physician. Id. at 21, 581 P.2d at 1308 (emphasis added).
Boxberger and Turney are instructive in the instant case. In her affidavit, Plaintiff attested that prior to the surgery on her mother's hip, she was not suffering from infections or receiving medication for infection, but that, after the surgery and the transfer to Healthsouth, the wound began to drain and the decedent was in great pain. Plaintiff stated:
A few days after my mother was transferred to Healthsouth Rehabilitation Hospital, I observed her when I came in to visit sitting unattended in a wheelchair saturated from the waist down from drainage coming from her surgical wound. I was upset and pointed out this condition to the staff at Healthsouth. My mother was in agony from her pain.
Plaintiff further stated that, in spite of subsequent corrective surgery, her mother continued to suffer great pain until her death.
Based upon Plaintiff's testimony, reasonable persons could conclude that the failure of Bone and Joint Hospital and Healthsouth Rehabilitation Hospital to provide proper medical treatment constituted gross negligence. The decedent's injury was so apparent and objective that expert testimony was not necessary for the issue of negligence to reach the jury.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 Oklahoma Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|