A New York doctor in charge of a midwife clinic in upstate New York must face charges that he withheld a hormone treatment, causing a baby to be born prematurely and suffer from a brain injury, according to a New York Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, the doctor\u2019s failure to administer a key hormone treatment caused a mother, who had four prior premature babies, to deliver a baby almost two months early.<\/p>\n
As a result, the baby developed a brain injury and cerebral palsy.<\/p>\n
The doctor\u2019s lawyers argued that he wasn\u2019t the mother\u2019s treating physician and the hormone treatment, which could have prevented the premature birth, wasn\u2019t part of the standard of care at the time.<\/p>\n
The court disagreed and ruled that substantial fact issues<\/a> were present in both questions. \u201cGiven Dolkart\u2019s status as the majority partner of [the clinic] and the evidence that he was responsible for setting its policies and practices, including with respect to [hormone treatment], we agree with the [state] Supreme Court that questions of fact exist as to [the clinic\u2019s] liability, precluding judgment as a matter of law in its favor,\u201d the ruling stated.<\/p>\n Under New York law, the duty of care, or the responsibility for personal safety, usually depends on control. When they are at home, people have almost complete control over their environments. Therefore, they are responsible for their own safety, at least in most cases.<\/p>\n But when people visit doctors, the physician has nearly complete control of the environment. Therefore, physicians are usually responsible for the safety of their patients.<\/p>\n Patients also completely depend on physicians for their healthcare needs.<\/p>\n Doctors have vast education, training, and experience in this area. Most patients have none of these things.<\/p>\n Because of this combination, doctors have a fiduciary duty<\/a> to care for their patients, from a health and safety standpoint.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one of the highest levels of responsibility in the Empire State. Most workers may consider things like economic factors and work-life balance.<\/p>\n But since the duty of care is so high, doctors cannot forgo expensive hormone treatments or skip research assignments so they can attend a child\u2019s piano recital.<\/p>\n This point brings up another element of the duty of care, which is the standard of care. Doctors who deviate from the standard of care are usually negligent. As mentioned, such deviation was a key issue in this case.<\/p>\n The doctor might or might not have gone astray in this area. But a jury, not a bunch of lawyers, should make this call.<\/p>\n In most birth injury claims, the breach (violation) of care could occur at any point during the PLDR (prenatal, labor, delivery, and recovery) process.<\/p>\n Early in the process, doctors should immediately spot red flags and appropriately respond to them. Unfortunately for patients, that doesn\u2019t always happen.<\/p>\n Macrosomic (abnormally large) babies are a good example. These infants could create a host of problems during delivery.<\/p>\n For the most part, these issues are preventable. But some doctors fail to heed the warning signs, like a history of large babies or maternal diabetes. Doctors are either so busy they don\u2019t see the signs or they dismiss the risk with an \u201cI\u2019ve got this\u201d overconfident attitude.<\/p>\n Other doctors don\u2019t order enough sonograms to monitor the fetus\u2019 development.<\/p>\n They\u2019re afraid the insurance company won\u2019t pay for the additional tests. But as mentioned, cost concerns cannot take precedence over what\u2019s best for the patient.<\/p>\n Failure to properly care for mothers and babies early on usually creates problems in the delivery room. If the baby is too large to drift down the mother\u2019s narrow birth canal, many doctors resort to dangerous delivery aids, such as:<\/p>\n A doctor\u2019s duty of care doesn\u2019t end once babies are born.<\/p>\n Some babies need additional care in a neonatal intensive care unit. For example, premature babies usually need to stay in a NICU until the expected date of confinement, or the predicted delivery date.<\/p>\n Frequently, however, emotional considerations creep into the equation.<\/p>\n Quite understandably, most families want to go home with their new babies. But the family\u2019s preference cannot take precedence over the baby\u2019s health needs.<\/p>\nDuty of Care in Birth Injury Cases<\/h2>\n
Breach of Care<\/h2>\n
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