If you are asking this question, then you have probably suffered an injury as a result of medical care that you believe was negligent. And you have probably decided that a lawsuit is the next step. But how will you get your doctors (or any doctor) to testify against someone in their own profession?As a lawyer, these questions aren’t new to me. In fact they are not new to any lawyer who handles medical negligence lawsuits. But these questions probably are new to the person who has just realized that a negligent doctor or nurse is the cause of their injury. If the injury is permanent, and debilitating like RSD often is, the questions must be terrifying.2) Swier Clinic doctor loses malpractice case
A patient of a Lewes-area plastic surgery and nerve surgery practice won a $3.4 million judgment against the doctor who operated on her leg in 2010 and, she successfully argued in court, caused her searing, long-lasting nerve pain she hadn’t had before.
The plaintiff, Patricia McLeod, had gone to Dr. Patrick Swier of the Swier Clinic on Savannah Road in 2009, complaining of an achy left knee and some tingling in her left foot’s toes at night. Swier, a licensed physician in Delaware since 2001, advertises he is “one of the few plastic surgeons on the East Coast” who also specializes in surgeries on legs and feet to relieve nerve compressions.
As court testimony showed, Swier performed nine procedures on nerves in McLeod’s left leg on April 5, 2010. But the result was even more pain, said Philip Edwards, an attorney for McCleod.
“After the surgery she suffered from debilitating pain and cramping,” Edwards said. “Our experts said the symptoms did not warrant surgery. Surgery should never have been performed.”
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