Court Opinion

ID: 9695027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:04:30.880204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:07.690860
License: Public Domain

Michael J. Kelly, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent.
*38The majority correctly observes that the plaintiffs experts, Drs. Neilson and Crane, testified that they were familiar with the standard of care for interns, residents, and nurses during the period covered by the treatment at issue. The experts’ credentials were not impeached, and, I believe, particularly Dr. Neilson’s credentials, were unassailable; his curriculum vitae showed practice experience in areas indisputably comparable to the Detroit metropolitan area. He was a teacher of interns and residents in comparable areas. If there existed some critical deficiency with regard to the voir dire of either of the experts, it should have been timely brought to the attention of the court. Presumably, the deficiency would have been cured by further direct exploration, because the court was familiar with the applicable standards and, indeed, instructed the jury correctly. There was ample testimony to confirm that the doctors were familiar with the requisite standard of care for similar medical centers and similar metropolitan communities. The majority notes that qualification via familiarity in similar communities is appropriate and meets the test. The majority concludes, however, that "we cannot say that plaintiffs experts were 'knowledgeable regarding the practice of the area in question,’ that being the Detroit community or communities similar thereto.” Ante, p 35. I conclude diametrically the opposite. If the battle lines on this issue had been clearly drawn, plaintiffs argument could have been that interns and residents in a huge metropolitan area should not enjoy the protection of a local standard of care. Cf. Mazey v Adams, 191 Mich App 328; 477 NW2d 698 (1991).
With regard to the error the majority finds concerning hearsay testimony regarding representations that the decedent should have been admitted to the intensive care unit, I believe any error *39in this regard was completely harmless, if it was error at all. Indeed, defense counsel did not seek a curative instruction, probably because the issue was not substantive. The defining issue was whether defendant’s intern and resident failed to recognize how seriously ill the decedent was and, as a result, failed to see that certain necessary tests were implemented.
There were three critical points from which the trier of fact could have determined, and in this case did determine, malpractice. The court correctly left to the jury these well-grounded issues:
1. Whether an arterial blood gas test should have been performed to determine if it was safe to give decedent fluids.
2. Whether the 0.9 percent saline solution should have been increased to three percent in view of the patient’s rising sodium content.
3. Whether, having ordered the three percent saline solution administered, the defendant’s physicians should have known that danger of cardiac arrest was thereby increased and that the decedent’s condition should have been monitored continuously, or at least more carefully.
Plaintiff’s experts testified that a blood oxygen level should have been obtained, a central venous pressure test should have been done, and the decedent should not have received the three percent solution. I would not disturb the jury’s verdict.
Finally, I believe the majority has reached an inappropriate, punitive, and extraordinary sanction in attaching to its remand a prohibition against plaintiff’s use of expert testimony regarding the standard of care applicable to interns and residents. Such an improvident injunction against expert testimony would appear to me to foreclose a fair retrial.
I would affirm.