Underlying Facts
Court Holds Physician Not Qualified To Testify As To Nursing Standard Of Care: In October 2013, Marie Smaha had surgery at The Medical Center of Central Georgia to remove her left kidney. Several days later, while recovering in the hospital, Smaha suffered from internal bleeding and died. Smaha’s three surviving children filed a Georgia medical malpractice wrongful death complaint against the medical center alleging malpractice by the nurses caring for Smaha in that they had failed to notify her surgeon of the signs and symptoms of her internal bleeding. Attached to the complaint was an affidavit of Martin Evans, M. D., who opined that the nurses had breached the accepted standard under similar circumstances by failing to identify and give appropriate notice of the signs and symptoms of Smaha’s post-surgical bleed.
OCGA § 24-7-702 (c) (2) (D)
OCGA § 24-7-702 (c) (2) (D) states: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this Code section, an expert who is a physician and, as a result of having, during at least three of the last five years immediately preceding the time the actor omission is alleged to have occurred, supervised, taught, or instructed nurses, . . . has knowledge of the standard of care of that health care provider under the circumstances at issue shall be competent to testify as to the standard of that health care provider.”
The Court of Appeals of Georgia stated in its June 21, 2023 opinion: “the appellants have not cited evidence on the specific issue in this case — evidence showing how and when, during at least three of the five years preceding Smaha’s death, Dr. Evans supervised, taught, or instructed nurses such that he was qualified to opine on the standard of care for nurses to identify signs and symptoms of post-surgical internal bleeding and report them to the surgeon. We have reviewed all of the record citations in the appellants’ brief supporting their claims, and none of them direct us to any such pertinent evidence. Many of the citations are not to evidence, and instead are to a trial court brief; while the references to evidence, including affidavit and deposition testimony, do not address the dispositive issue regarding supervising and instructing nurses on identifying and reporting internal bleeding in circumstances like those in this case … The trial court therefore did not abuse its discretion in granting the motion to disqualify Dr. Evans as an expert on the applicable nursing standard of care … given our holding above that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding such testimony, the appellants have shown no basis for reversing the grant of summary judgment.”
Smaha v. The Medical Center of Central Georgia, A23A0267.
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