Verdict In Malpractice Case Against Anesthesiologist: On February 2, 2023, a Virginia medical malpractice jury returned its verdict in favor of the defendant anesthesiologist after a four-day trial and less than two hours of jury deliberations in a Virginia medical malpractice case that sought $4 million in damages for the death of a patient. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant anesthesiologist breached the standard of care by attempting a traditional intubation in a patient who met the criteria for a difficult airway, and that the defendant should have attempted an awake intubation using a flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope that would have maintained the patient’s ability to breath on his own. The plaintiff’s expert testified during trial that an awake intubation would have been successful with no need for a tracheotomy.
The Underlying Facts
Douglas Hicks arrived at the hospital on October 1, 2016 with persistent coughing and hypoxia. He had an upper respiratory infection for almost a month for which he had completed at least two courses of oral antibiotics without resolution of his symptoms. Approximately two hours after his arrival at the hospital, the ED physician noticed a mass in his neck that got progressively larger over time.
Hicks experienced difficulty swallowing and problems with gagging, and he was coughing up copious amounts of phlegm while in the ED. He was admitted to the ICU after which a CT scan showed a large mass in his neck that was compressing his trachea and deviating it to the left.
The defendant anesthesiologist attempted to intubate Hicks in the ICU in order to protect his airway, by performing a rapid sequence induction using anesthetic and paralytic drugs, after which he attempted a traditional intubation using a laryngoscope. The defendant anesthesiologist was unable to visualize Hicks’ vocal cords and therefore called an airway alert so that a surgical team would respond. The defendant anesthesiologist made at least two more attempts to intubate Hicks using different video laryngoscopes before the surgical team arrived (Hicks was successfully ventilated between attempts). The surgical team was able to perform a tracheotomy and place a breathing tube that was then connected to a ventilator. The procedure was complicated because Hicks was hyper-anticoagulated, which was not discovered until the surgical airway was underway because no one in the ER or ICU had ordered an INR level despite Hicks being on Coumadin.
Approximately three hours after the surgical airway was placed, Hicks experienced a series of cardiac arrests that began after blood pooled in his lungs and blocked his breathing tubes. He was successfully resuscitated but not before he suffered an irreversible anoxic brain injury. Hicks died on October 2, 2016, survived by three adult children and a wife who was in the early stages of dementia.
The defense argued that the standard of care permits an anesthesiologist to choose from multiple intubation techniques, including those employed by the defendant, and that an awake intubation would not have been easy due to Hicks’ body habitus, the expanding neck mass, his difficulty swallowing, and his problems with coughing, gagging, and phlegm.
If you or a loved one suffered harm as a result of medical negligence in Virginia or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a Virginia medical malpractice lawyer, or a medical malpractice lawyer in your state, who may investigate your medical malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
Click on the “Contact Us Now” tab to the right, visit our website, or call us toll-free in the United States at 800-295-3959 to find medical malpractice attorneys in your state who may assist you.
Turn to us when you don’t know where to turn.