Nurse And Nurse Practitioner Are Members Of The Same Profession: Christopher Bryant filed a Georgia medical malpractice lawsuit in which he alleged that on February 26, 2019, he went to the emergency department at Wellstar Spalding Regional Hospital for pain he was experiencing after being involved in a motor vehicle accident. Gertrude Okafor, a nurse practitioner, was the highest level clinician to see Bryan during his visit. Okafor ordered basic vitals to be taken (revealing high blood pressure), prescribed pain medication, and ordered x-rays. When Bryant returned from radiology, his wife requested to speak to a nurse because she noticed that he began drooling, had slurred speech, the left side of his mouth drooped, and he was cold. Okafor came into the room, assessed his ability to speak, and then left the room. Okafor then ordered that he be discharged. When his symptoms became increasingly worse, Bryant went to a different hospital where he was diagnosed with a stroke later that day.
Bryant’s medical malpractice complaint alleged that Okafor deviated from the standard of care, that this deviation from the standard of care was both negligent and professionally negligent and that, as a direct and proximate result of this negligence, Bryant’s stroke was not diagnosed until later in the day. Bryant attached the affidavit of Gail Kujawski, a registered nurse, to his Georgia medical malpractice complaint wherein Kujawski opined that Bryant had exhibited classic signs of a stroke and that Okafor had violated the “standard of care for nurses” because she failed to perform a physical examination and report the results to a doctor.
Okafor filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that Kujawski was not qualified to provide an OCGA § 9-11-9.1 affidavit regarding the standard of care applicable to nurse practitioners. The trial court granted Okafor’s motion to dismiss, finding that the affidavit of the registered nurse did not meet the “same profession” pleading threshold requirements of OCGA §§ 9-11-9.1 and 24-7-702 to initiate a professional malpractice action against a nurse practitioner. Bryant filed an appeal.
In its May 8, 2023 opinion, the Court of Appeals of Georgia held: “Kujawski, a registered nurse, is a member of the same profession as Okafor, a nurse practitioner. They are both nurses and members of the nursing profession. Just as nurses and nurse midwives are members of the same profession, cardiologists and ER doctors are members of the same profession, and rheumatologists and psychiatrists are members of the same profession, so too are registered nurses and nurse practitioners. Thus, the trial court erred in granting Okafor’s motion to dismiss on the ground that a registered nurse and a nurse practitioner are not members of the same profession.”
Bryant v. Okafor, A23A0041.
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