Unexpected death not the result of medical malpractice

An unexpected death isn't always the result of malpractice by the deceased's physicians, as attorney Stephen Brown was able to show a Jackson County jury last month.

The medical malpractice claim was brought by the deceased's mother against her daughter's treating physicians after her daughter arrived at the emergency room complaining of shortness of breath. Because she was an asthma patient, the doctors presumed she was suffering from an asthma attack, and treated her accordingly.

An internist visited the patient about five hours after she arrived in the emergency room. The internist believed she was doing much better and expected she would be discharged the following day.

That afternoon, friends came to visit the 29-year-old woman. A couple of hours later, the patient suffered a local pulmonary embolism and died.

It was an unfortunate death, but we felt that the doctors did nothing wrong, Brown said. We felt strongly about this case, and when the jury came back after two hours of deliberation, finding in favor of all three doctors, they felt gratified.

Brown said he wanted to show the jury that, beyond being good physicians, they were living, breathing human beings.

I wanted to put a personality on it, Brown said.

This, in addition to some highly qualified experts, helped show the jury that this was just an unfortunate turn of events for the family, and not the fault of the physicians.

Copyright 2004 Dolan Media Newswires
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.