 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
WASFI v. CHADDHA3/26/1991
nsuited for Mrs. Wasfi's condition.
"There has been testimony in this case that Dr. Riccio elected a certain course of treatment for Carrie Wasfi's condition as he understood it in 1982, to wit: carbogen therapy. There has also been testimony that another course of treatment should have been undertaken and that is ordering a CAT scan. Now there may be more than one established system of diagnosis and treatment. While the law recognizes that there are different schools of thought in this regard, it does not favor or give exclusive recognition to any particular system of diagnosis and treatment over another.
"The law is that a physician is not bound to use any particular method or medical school of thought in diagnosing
his patient. When a physician of ordinary skill and learning recognizes several methods of diagnosis as proper, the defendant may adopt any such methods without subjecting himself to liability an unfortunate result so long as such method of diagnosis is consistent with the skill, care and diligence ordinarily had and exercised by other specialists in his field in like cases at that time he undertook that function. Thus, if you were - if there were several established methods of diagnosis recognized at the time Dr. Riccio saw Mrs. Wasfi in his office on October, 1982, the test is not whether Dr. Riccio adopted a method another doctor might not adopt, but whether the method he did adopt was one that was in compliance with the standard of care, skill and diligence required of the particular school of thought embracing that method.
"Therefore, you must decide whether or not the carbogen therapy prescribed by Dr. Riccio for Wasfi was an established diagnostic modality under any recognized school of thought or in cases such as Mrs. Wasfi presented to him in October of 1982. If you find by a fair preponderance of the evidence that carbogen therapy was not consistent with any established diagnostic modality for cases such as Mrs. Wasfi' s, then it would be negligent for Dr. Riccio to employ it on Mrs. Wasfi. If, however, you conclude that such a diagnostic modality was an established modality for treating patients in like cases, by ordinarily prudent radiologists in October of 1982, then Dr. Riccio was not negligent in using it."
Seizing upon the trial court's use of the term "schools of thought," Wasfi assumes that the foregoing charge purported to summarize the principle that the law will not judge between different medical "schools of thought" so long as a physician acts according to the standards within that "school." Force v. Gregory,
63 Conn. 167, 171, 27 A. 1116 (1893). She contends, correctly, that such a charge on "schools of thought" would be improper where, as here, no evidence was offered that Riccio adhered to a "recognized school of good standing, which has established rules and principles of practice for the guidance of all its members, as respects diagnosis and remedies, which each member is supposed to observe in any given case." 61 Am.Jur.2d, Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers 214, p. 345; see Katsetos v. Nolan, 170 Conn. 637, 652, 368 A.2d 172 (1976); Geraty v. Kaufman, 115 Conn. 563, 571, 162 A. 33 (1932); Force v. Gregory, supra; Bryant v. Biggs, 331 Mich. 64, 73-78, 49 N.W.2d 63 (1951); but see Furey v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, 325 Pa. Super. 212, 224-25, 472 A.2d 1083 (1984) (different schools of thought exist where competent medical authority is divided).
Riccio offered no evidence that his conduct was in accordance with such a distinct "school of thought." Instead his evidence tended simply to show that whether, after a tentative diagnosis of a viral or vascular cause
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Connecticut Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|