Court Opinion

ID: 9608624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:15:11.173028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:15.224449
License: Public Domain

Judge Phillips
dissenting.
In my opinion the trial court erred in directing a verdict for the defendant on the agency issue, as the evidence presented was sufficient to indicate that Dr. Miller had the right to control the work of Nurse Hawkes during the operation and the manner in which he did it. In brushing aside the testimony of several doctors, including Dr. Miller himself, that defendant had the ultimate responsibility for the proper treatment of the patient during surgery, the majority incorrectly indicates that the testimony was without *331legal or probative effect and that the source of that responsibility is unclear and may result from some ineffective medical or hospital code. As the evidence plainly indicates, it seems to me, the surgeon’s ultimate responsibility for those who assist in the surgery results from the physician-patient relationship, the nature of the services undertaken, and the realities of the operating room, where the only alternative to a coordinated team effort under the control of the surgeon is for the assistants to do as they see fit, which is a folly that no sensible patient not in extremis would ever knowingly submit to and that no conscientious surgeon would ever permit.
And in my view it was prejudicial error to exclude the expert testimony of Nurse Anesthetist Privatte as to the things that a nurse anesthetist can and cannot properly do during a medical crisis without instructions from the surgeon and as to the instructions that surgeons give in such situations. Though not a surgeon, she had assisted surgeons in thousands of operations and was eminently qualified to give the testimony, which could have made a difference in the case, and what members of a trade or profession ordinarily do in certain situations is evidence of what should be done in those situations, though not phrased in the jargon of approved standards.