Jury finds Med prof liable in $6 million suit

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Cardiothoracic Surgery Professor L. Henry Edmunds committed medical negligence and must pay $6 million to heart surgery patient Patricia McCauley, a jury ruled last Monday. But Health System spokesperson Lori Doyle insisted that the University is not at fault and will appeal the ruling. "While we sympathize with Mrs. McCauley's situation, we don't feel we're responsible for her ongoing medical condition," she said. "We were extremely disappointed and surprised by the jury's decision." McCauley was admitted to HUP in May 1991 and underwent an operation to "remove a calcified false aneurysm of the? aorta," according to court papers. But following the surgery she went into cardiac arrest, and although she was released from the hospital, her ventricles no longer worked properly, forcing the need for a pacemaker. McCauley insisted that she was kept in the dark about her medical complications even after leaving HUP. "To top it all off, the hospital hid what happened to me for 18 months," she said. "They never told me they cut the coronary artery, they never told me I'd never get better -- they hid it from me." She filed suit against HUP and Edmunds -- along with another HUP doctor who was later dropped from the action -- two years after being released from the hospital, accusing the defendants of "negligence and carelessness" in her treatment. She charged Edmunds with "failure to provide and render reasonable medical care" and alleged that he "failed to act in a timely manner to promptly diagnose the litigated right coronary artery," among other charges. Her allegations against HUP included "failure to properly train and/or supervise its medical personnel who provided care to the plaintiff" and "failure to maintain safe and adequate facilities and equipment." According to a report in The Legal Intelligencer, McCauley's attorney Leonard Fodera asserted that some of his client's heart muscle could have been saved if HUP had an operating room or certain equipment available to her after she went into cardiac arrest. But Doyle insisted that HUP and Edmunds had acted properly throughout the entire procedure. "A physician was at Mrs. McCauley's bedside from the time she left surgery to the time she was stabilized following her cardiac arrest," she explained. Doyle added that "although Dr. Edmunds had moved on to another? surgery, he was promptly notified of her cardiac arrest and took steps to ensure that swift action was taken to diagnose and treat her coronary condition." The suit also accused the hospital and Edmunds of failing "to inform the plaintiff of the proposed surgery and the risks involved," but the jury acquitted them of that charge. McCauley is currently attempting to be placed on the heart transplant waiting list at Temple University Hospital and continues to receive treatment for cardiac problems. She is also taking "a lot of different" medications, which "are what's keeping everything working." "Every day's different, every day's difficult," McCauley added. "I get out of breath sometimes." She is also in the process of divorcing her husband, John McCauley -- who filed suit with his wife but settled out of court with the defendants earlier this year. When the divorce is finalized, Patricia McCauley will be without health insurance and face the costs of appealing her case as well a possible heart transplant. But she insisted that she will "fight [HUP and Edmunds] again" if necessary. "The world knows now that I stood up to him," she said. "In a way, I've already won. I won pride-wise." Edmunds and Fodera were both out of town and unavailable for comment, and lawyers for the plaintiff and defendant did not return phone calls.