News on April 22nd 2004:
Haematologist says: Blood transfusions would have saved woman's life"
jwsons
St. Louis: Blood transfusions would have saved woman's life, doctor says
by jwsons 11 Replies latest watchtower medical
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jwsons
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Elsewhere
Blood transfusions would have saved woman's life, doctor says
By WILLIAM C. LHOTKA
Of the Post-Dispatch
04/22/2004
Linda Grissom
(Handout)
Linda Grissom, a Jehovah's Witness, would have survived complications from surgery if she had agreed to blood transfusions, a hematologist at St. Anthony's Medical Center told a jury Thursday.Dr. Victoria J. Dorr, the hematologist, testified in St. Louis County Circuit Court that Grissom, 64, refused to allow her to start transfusions about five hours after Dr. Ronald Gaskin cut an artery during gallbladder removal surgery on Nov. 20, 2001.
Dorr said Grissom had a tube in her throat to help her breathe but was awake, alert, and unwilling - by shakes of her head - to let Dorr proceed with transfusions that, Dorr told the jury, would have saved her life. Grissom died the next day.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits them from accepting blood transfusions from others, Shermond Lewis and Brandon Collins, congregation elders, testified previously.
Before the surgery, Grissom had signed waivers saying she would not accept transfusions.
Grissom's husband, Gene, and her daughters, Patty, Lisa and Sheila, are suing Gaskin for unspecified damages, claiming malpractice. Their attorney, Alvin A. Wolff Jr., has alleged that Gaskin botched the surgery by nicking the aorta in the procedure.Gaskin's attorneys, Philip Willman and Matthew Hendricks, say their client was not negligent and should not be blamed for a death the patient could have prevented.
Dorr said she would have put Grissom on a regimen of blood and plasma had the patient agreed to it.
"What would have happened if you had followed that formula?" Hendricks asked.
"I'm sure she would have survived," Dorr said.
Dorr teaches at St. Louis University. She said she tells her students about the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses: "In the United States, we have the freedom of choice. As long as patients are of sound mind and there is no reason to believe they are coerced, you have to follow their choice."
Gaskin had said he got a cell saver - a machine that collects and recycles the patient's own blood during surgery - in operation within two minutes of discovering the bleeding but could not salvage enough to be of use.
Given the nature of the wound, it was unlikely that the cell saver could have made a difference, Dorr suggested.
Gaskin has testified twice during the trial. In both instances, he admitted that complications developed in the operation.
Medical experts have disagreed over whether he was negligent, or failed to meet the standard of care of his profession.
Gaskin, with offices in south St. Louis County, said he has performed nearly 550 such procedures.
Over Willman's objections, Wolff then convinced Judge David Lee Vincent III on Wednesday to let Wolff question Gaskin about prior surgical mistakes.
Gaskin admitted he had cut or nicked arteries in surgeries in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and took a voluntary suspension of privileges at St. Anthony's for 2 1/2 months in 1998. He said he took a one-week refresher course on the procedure at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and returned to practice in good standing.
Gaskin acknowledged that he had not told Grissom or her husband about those previous complications and their blood losses.
"Would you let a doctor with these prior complications operate on your wife?" Wolff asked Gaskin. The judge sustained Willman's objection to the question but refused the defense lawyer's request for a mistrial over it.
Reporter William C. Lhotka:
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 314-615-3283 -
jwsons
Thx Elsewhere. I don't know how to add her cute picture. Great!
jwsons
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xLaurax
Hmm.... i can see the point that you're trying to make. However, i do believe that a person should have the right to choose as to whether they want blood transfusions or not. I, personally think that it is an old rule from the bible that needs updating, as it dates back to when people belived that blood was essentially 'the person' and so to put somebody elses blood in their body would be unclean.
This does pose a potential problem to doctors however, given the oath that they are required to take on becoming a doctor. Basically that they prevent death by whatever is possible for them to do. Hmm.... tricky.
xLaurax
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Sam Beli
Thanks jwsons for this information. Please let us know the outcome of this trial.
Sam
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wednesday
that woman is 64, wow, she is a beauty. Sort of reminds me of DeDe.
People should not be allowed to throw their life away. We had this on another thread about forcing your jw mate to take a transfusion against their will, well, i would. I am not going to let a cult take my husbands life. If he is out and can't speak for himself, i will allow it. It he is awake and refusing, i will get all the family together and do an intervention and use any method i can to convince him to change his mind. i will not stand by while he gives his life for a worhtless cult.
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Joker10
$412,500 is awarded in suit against surgeon By WILLIAM C. LHOTKA
Of the Post-Dispatch
04/24/2004 A jury in St. Louis County Circuit Court awarded $412,500 Friday night to the family of Linda Grissom, a Jehovah's Witness who refused a blood transfusion and died after surgery in November 2001.
The jury found in favor of Linda Grissom's husband, Gene, and her daughters, Patty, Lisa and Sheila. Jurors found against Dr. Ronald Gaskin, the surgeon who cut her aorta during gallbladder removal surgery but repaired the wound on the operating table.
The jury ruled for total damages of $750,000 but found Gaskin only 55 percent at fault and the family 45 percent at fault.
The key questions in the weeklong trial were:
Did Grissom's decision to reject a blood transfusion unfairly shift the responsibility for her death to the doctor?
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits church members from accepting blood from others.
Grissom, 64, of Imperial, was a production line supervisor, a wife, mother and a grandmother who was planning her retirement in two months when she died on Nov. 21, 2001, a day after surgery.
Gaskin is a general surgeon with a practice in south St. Louis County and surgical privileges at St. Anthony's Medical Center. He had performed more than 500 laparascopic cholecystectomies, procedures to remove the gallbladder that are less invasive than open wound surgery.
Gaskin's attorney, Philip Willman, argued, "This case is about freedom of choice, and it is unfair to blame Dr. Gaskin for that choice" of rejecting blood transfusions that Grissom made before surgery in waivers she signed - and after surgery when she was questioned by a hematologist at St. Anthony's.
Alvin A. Wolff Jr., the plaintiffs' attorney, said the cutting of the aorta during what was supposed to be bloodless surgery was "malpractice every time. I can't imagine anything else."
By "every time," Wolff was referring to admissions by the surgeon that he had cut or nicked arteries in surgeries in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and took a voluntary suspension of privileges at St. Anthony's for 2 1/2 months in 1998.
Dr. Edward Mason of Atlanta, an expert on the procedure and the last witness in the trial, disagreed. Mason said cutting the aorta was inadvertent and Gaskin would have been negligent only if he had not recognized it and successfully sutured it on the operating table.
Mason said he had performed 5,000 such gallbladder removals, however, without cutting an artery.
In arguing negligence by Gaskin, Wolff cited a study in 1993 in the American Journal of Surgery in which 4,292 hospitals reported just 13 instances of aorta cutting in 77,604 cases.
Willman noted the testimony of the hematologist, Dr. Victoria Dorr, who told the jury that Grissom would have survived if she had accepted blood transfusions. -
Sam Beli
It is not surprising that a jury would expect a surgeon to perform flawlessly, even though every one of them has made mistakes on their job in one way or another.
It is also ironic that the suite was brought by JWs who tolerate a huge error rate from their religious leaders. Included among these errors is the tortured blood policy, an error that tolerates no error from those who are victimized by it such as this surgeon and this dead patient.
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Pork Chop
This guy had a history of making "mistakes." The expert witness has performed 5,000 such procedures without making such a "mistake." This guys privileges were suspended because he made too many "mistakes." Don't be such a bigot.
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nobody told me
If this guy had a history of making mistakes it was up to the family to do the research on this doctor, since they were going to demand perfection. Did the other patients die when mistakes were made? or were they given blood? Suspensions etc.. are public records. If your going to tie a doctor hands don't bitch about the outcome.
