Opinion ID: 3161627
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard of Care and Breach

Text: ¶12. “Mississippi physicians are bound by nationally-recognized standards of care; they have a duty to employ ‘reasonable and ordinary care’ in the treatment of their patients.”6 “[O]ur law requires a plaintiff to establish—through a qualified expert—what is required of a minimally competent [physician], ‘whose skills and knowledge are sufficient to meet the licensure or certification requirements for the profession or specialty practiced.”7 2 Miss. R. Civ. P. 56 (c). 3 Duckworth v. Warren, 10 So. 3d 433, 436 (Miss. 2009). 4 Miss. R. Civ. P. 56 (e). 5 Vaughn v. Miss. Baptist Med. Ctr., 20 So. 3d 645, 650 (Miss. 2009). 6 Palmer v. Biloxi Reg’l Med. Ctr., Inc., 564 So. 2d 1346, 1354 (Miss. 1990) (quoting Phillips v. Hull, 516 So. 2d 488, 491 (Miss. 1987)). 7 Braswell v. Stinnett, 99 So. 3d 175, 179 (Miss. 2012) (citing McCarty v. Mladineo, 636 So. 2d 377, 381 (Miss. 1994)). 5 “[Physicians] are not required to do what is generally done, or what the average [physician] would do.”8 ¶13. This case does not present a “battle of the experts.” But we must draw attention to the fact that Dr. Davey—Glenn’s designated testifying expert—is board-certified only in “wound care” and nothing else, and certainly not internal medicine. Dr. Davey was ineligible to be board-certified in internal medicine because he had not completed the required internalmedicine residency program. Dr. Reddix—Dr. Peoples’s designated testifying expert—is, however, board-certified in internal medicine and he devotes his medical practice solely to this area. But for purposes of this analysis, we will assume that Dr. Davey does in fact meet the necessary qualifications to testify as an “expert” regarding issues of internal medicine. ¶14. Both doctors articulated the same standard of care for the treatment of DVT or recurrent DVT—which was Aldridge’s diagnosis at the time Dr. Peoples prescribed Coumadin. Specifically, the doctors agreed that the standard treatment was anticoagulation therapy—typically with Lovenox and Coumadin—unless there were “contraindications to anticoagulation,” or more simply put, unless medical tests indicated the risk of bleeds became too high. According to the experts, to properly determine whether contraindications to anticoagulation exist, a treating physician should conduct a risk-benefit analysis. ¶15. Where the experts differed was on the issue of whether Dr. Peoples had breached the standard of care, that is, whether Dr. Peoples had acted negligently in prescribing Coumadin to Aldridge. Dr. Davey conceded that opinions can differ regarding whether the risks 8 Braswell, 99 So. 3d at 179. 6 outweigh the benefits, and he did not deny that Dr. Peoples had followed the standard of care by conducting the risk-benefit analysis. Despite this, Dr. Davey maintained that the risk factors concerning Aldridge’s medical condition weighed too heavily against the possible benefits to be gained by the Coumadin, and that any opinion to the contrary was a breach of the standard of care. ¶16. Drs. Reddix and Peoples argued the opposite—asserting that Dr. Peoples had carefully considered all of the risk factors, conducted the appropriate tests ruling out some of the risks, weighed the multitude of benefits, and then ultimately had decided that the benefits gained substantially outweighed the risks—and that as a result, no breach had occurred. ¶17. Because we are required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party—which in the case would be Glenn—we hold that there remains a genuine issue of fact as to whether Dr. Peoples breached the standard of care by prescribing Coumadin to Aldridge. But the inquiry does not end here.