Richard Murphy and Betsy Grover Won Verdict For Gastroenterologists
November 16, 2007
58-year-old Joan Mayers was admitted to Good Shepherd Hospital on December 20, 1998 with severe abdominal pain and died three days later. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a thrombotic occlusion of the superior mesenteric artery, leading to bowel necrosis, gangrene, bowel perforation and sepsis. The post-mortem also showed a 50% occlusion of the superior mesenteric artery by atheromatous plaque. The estate brought an action against three gastroenterology partners. One of the Defendants had been treating the patient for four years and had made a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome. Plaintiff asserted that the patient had been suffering from chronic mesenteric ischemia throughout this time and that the defendants were negligent in failing to make the correct diagnosis and in failing to order an angiogram, especially since another of the defendants had included mesenteric ischemia in her differential diagnosis three weeks before the death. The defense argued that the diagnosis of irritable bowel was correct; that the fatal thrombus formed acutely or was a thromboembolus; that an angiogram was not indicated; and that an earlier angiogram would not have revealed the presence of the yet to form thrombus. The jury returned a verdict in favor of all three defendants.
