A South Carolina court ruled in favor of a radiologist accused of negligence in his treatment of an infant who was left with complications resulting from the improper placement of an umbilical vein catheter (UVC). The plaintiffs alleged that the radiologist’s failure to notify the treating physician and the medical staff in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that the UVC was not positioned correctly constituted negligence. The Supreme Court of South Carolina upheld the ruling in favor of the radiologist.
The patient suffered respiratory distress shortly after birth and was transferred to the hospital’s Level 2 NICU. The treating physician instructed the NICU nurses to place a peripheral intravenous line for administration of fluids and medications and for blood draws. The nurses were unable to place the IV line, so the treating physician ordered the placement of a UVC. After the UVC was placed, an X-ray of the patient’s chest was taken to ensure that the UVC was placed properly. The radiologist reviewed the X-ray and sent a report to the NICU; in the report, he described the placement of the UVC but did not mention any of the risks associated with its location or even that it was improperly placed.
Because the UVC had been advanced too far, the patient suffered cardiac arrest the day after it was placed. After the hospital staff pulled the UVC line back, the patient suffered cardiac tamponade, and although they were able to resuscitate her, she had complications.
The patient’s family filed lawsuits against four defendants they accused of negligence in the management of their newborn daughter’s care. Three of the defendants settled with the plaintiffs, but the radiologist went to trial.
The trial court ruled in favor of the radiologist. It reasoned that, according to the treating physician’s notes, the treating physician knew upon reviewing the X-ray and the radiologist’s report that the UVC was positioned incorrectly. The physician wrote that he had considered having the UVC repositioned but had decided that repositioning it was riskier than leaving it as it was. Therefore, there was no room to argue that the reason the UVC was left in its original position until after the patient suffered cardiac arrest was that the physician was unaware that the UVC had been placed improperly. The radiologist did not deny that he had breached the standards of care by omitting mention of the risks of improper UVC placement from his report; rather, he argued that his negligence was not the cause of the patient’s permanent disability.
The patient’s outcome is indeed tragic, but not all parties involved are liable. The radiologist would not have been able to win his case without the help of highly qualified medical experts to present the facts in a way that can be understood by people other than medical professionals and to show that his error was not the cause of the patient’s injury.
