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Moss v. Weiss10/4/2005
SMITH, P. J., ELLINGTON and ADAMS, JJ.
In this medical malpractice case, Mayona Moss sued her physician, William D. Weiss, M.D., for damages arising out of complications from knee replacement surgery. A jury trial resulted in a verdict for Weiss. The trial court denied Moss' motion for new trial and she appeals, contending the trial court made several evidentiary errors and improperly instructed the jury. Finding no error, we affirm.
Where the jury returns a verdict which the trial court enters as a judgment, the judgment must be affirmed on appeal if there is any evidence to support the verdict, because the jurors are the exclusive judges of the weight and credibility of the evidence. . . . e must construe the evidence with every inference and presumption in favor of upholding the verdict.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) DeVooght v. Hobbs, 265 Ga. App. 329, 334 (4) (593 SE2d 868) (2004).
Viewed in favor of the jury's verdict, the evidence showed the following facts.
On December 2, 1999, Weiss performed knee replacement surgery on Moss. In Weiss' post-surgical instructions to hospital personnel, he specifically noted that he did not want "cold therapy" for Moss' knee by crossing out that portion of the hospital's standard post-surgical and admissions protocol sheets. During his hospital rounds the morning after surgery, however, Weiss observed that the hospital's nurses had placed ice packs on Moss' knee against his orders. Moss' knee had been wrapped in bandages and covered with a towel, with the ice packs placed on top. The evidence conflicted as to exactly when the ice was placed on Moss' knee.
Weiss testified that it irritated him that the nurses had failed to follow his orders, and he told Moss that the ice packs were placed on her knee against his orders. Weiss told the nurse in the room that he did not want ice packs on Moss' knee and she immediately removed the packs, so he thought "that was the end of it." He did not believe it was necessary to write the same instructions in Moss' chart. He also testified that he did not mention the ice packs in Moss' chart because he did not think use of the ice was significant. Weiss testified that he did not see any medical problems associated with the use of ice packs during his exam that day and he did not expect to see any problems develop because of them.
During a post-operative visit a few weeks after the surgery, however, Weiss observed that some of the tissue around the surgical site was not healing properly and was necrotic. Weiss did not know exactly what was causing the necrosis, but he recorded in Moss' chart that the problem appeared to arise from multiple factors and that the placement of ice over the bandages may have contributed to the problem. At trial, Weiss emphasized that he believed that use of the ice packs was only one possible contributing factor among many and that the ice packs, by themselves, did not cause the problem. According to Weiss, the other contributing factors included Moss' age and excess weight, her use of certain medications, her recent history of bronchitis, anemia, arthritis, and difficulty healing, and the use of a mechanical device to automatically move her knee following surgery.
Over the next few months, Moss continued to experience complications with her knee, including necrosis of the skin and a persistent infection around the prosthesis. She had multiple skin debridement procedures to treat the necrosis, and eventually had to have the knee prosthesis replaced due to the infection. Moss sued Weiss for medical malpractice, claiming that Weiss failed to properly sterilize the prosthesis prior to surgery, instruct t
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