This past week Ted Smith secured a unanimous defense verdict representing an interventional cardiologist in the Oneida County Supreme Court. In this medical malpractice case, which arose from a 2011 procedure, the plaintiff alleged the defendant physician negligently performed a bilateral subclavian angioplasty and stenting procedure, injuring the brachiocephalic artery during surgery and causing an ischemic stroke that left the patient permanently unable to use her left arm. The plaintiff’s primary argument at trial was that the defendant failed to adequately heparinize the patient in light of the heightened risk of clot formation.
At trial, Ted dismantled the plaintiff’s case methodically and meticulously. Drawing on thorough research into the plaintiff’s expert, he cross-examined the general surgeon on significant gaps in his credentials and his limited vascular surgery experience both at the time of the alleged malpractice and over the last decade. He also elicited the plaintiff’s expert’s concession that the arterial dissection was a known risk of the procedure and not itself evidence of negligence. Through the defense’s vascular surgery expert, the defense rebutted the plaintiff’s theory on the accepted activated clotting time range for angioplasties. He also established the distinction between anticoagulant and antiplatelet medication and demonstrated the defendant physician followed proper protocol by ordering the correct medication at the appropriate dose.
In his opening and closing statements, Ted’s command of the medicine and persuasive delivery kept the jury engaged despite the complexity of the medical issues. After a brief deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict finding that the defendant physician was not negligent.
