BEAUMONT – An appellate court ruled that two health care providers failed to prove a former patient did not have enough evidence to proceed in a health care-liability claim.
The Court of Appeals 9th District of Texas at Beaumont Justices Hollis Horton, Leanne Johnson and Charles Kreger affirmed a trial court’s order on Aug. 16 that denied dismissal to defendants Dr. Raees Ahmed and the Diagnostic Group after they filed an appeal. Ahmed and Diagnostic Group claimed the 58th District Court in Jefferson County abused its discretion when it denied the motion to dismiss the complaint filed by plaintiff Verdina Murphy.
In the original complaint filed by Murphy in June 2017, she alleges she suffered a second stroke following a misdiagnosis by Ahmed in 2015. During her initial stay under Ahmed's care from April 30 to May 4, 2015, at Baptist Hospital, she claims he misdiagnosed her as having a transient ischemic attack when she had actually suffered from a transient stroke. Murphy claimed Ahmed failed to prescribe her medications required to prevent another stroke and discharged her without consulting a neurologist.
After her stay at Baptist, Murphy suffered a second stroke, but was taken to a different hospital where she was treated for stroke symptoms. She believes that her second stroke could have been prevented if Ahmed had properly diagnosed her during her initial treatment.
Since the claim is against a health care provider for medical malpractice, Murphy was required to file an expert report no later than 120 days after the defendants answered the suit, and Murphy enlisted the opinion of Dr. Camazine. Camazine’s opinion has the purpose of providing a fair summary regarding standards of care, how the care was rendered and the relationship between the failure of care and injury claimed.
Camazine wrote in his report that Ahmed’s alleged failure to properly diagnose Murphy allowed for no further consideration for future strokes and in less than two weeks, her symptoms worsened. He also noted that when she was readmitted to a different hospital, her stroke occurred “virtually in the same areas of the brain” as before, but during this second stay she was seen by a neurologist and received intensive therapy, which is standard protocol for stroke victims. His report also identified eight breaches in standard of care by Ahmed, which he believed are linked to Murphy’s second stroke.
“Had Dr. Ahmed utilized the correct standard of care, then Ms. Murphy would have been properly treated in a multidisciplinary approach by the correct specialists,” Camazine said in his report. “This is why we have stroke centers and stroke protocols.”
Ahmed and the Diagnostic Group did not discredit Camazine’s qualifications to express the opinions he put forth in the report, but argued that the report still does not prove that Ahmed’s actions caused Murphy’s second stroke. The court believed there was enough evidence to keep Murphy’s claim afloat.
“We conclude that Dr. Camazine's report contains an adequate explanation regarding the steps Dr. Ahmed should have followed to avoid the complications Murphy suffered after Dr. Ahmed discharged her from the hospital,” Horton, Johnson and Kreger said in their decision. “We conclude that the appellants have not shown that the trial court abused its discretion by denying their motion.
Court of Appeals 9th District of Texas at Beaumont case number 09-18-00105-CV