Torts — medical malpractice

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Wisconsin Supreme Court

Civil

Torts — medical malpractice

Even if a physician was found not negligent in his diagnosis, the circuit court could not determine, as a matter of law, that the physician had no duty to inform the patient of the possibility that the cause of his symptoms might be a blocked artery, which posed imminent, life-threatening risks, and of the availability of alternative, non-invasive means of ruling out or confirming the source of his symptoms.

“Applying the reasonable patient standard, we conclude that under the circumstances of the present case Dr. Bullis had a duty to inform Jandre on the night of June 13, 2003, of the availability of an alternative, viable means of determining whether he had suffered an ischemic stroke event rather than an attack of Bell’s palsy. Dr. Bullis failed to discharge this duty, even though she knew that Bell’s palsy was a diagnosis of exclusion (that is, there is no affirmative test for Bell’s palsy) and that her chosen method of excluding an ischemic stroke event was, to quote Dr. Bullis, “very, very poor.” A jury could have determined under the facts and circumstances of the present case that Dr. Bullis should have known that information about another available non-invasive diagnostic tool was information a reasonable patient in Jandre’s position would have wanted in order to decide intelligently whether to follow Dr. Bullis’s recommendations.”

Affirmed.

2008AP1972 Jandre v. Wisconsin Injured Patients & Families Compensation Fund

Abrahamson, C.J.

Attorneys: For Appellant: Gutglass, James R., Milwaukee; Heffernan, Michael S., Madison; Van Sicklen, Michael B., Madison; Schneider, Maria K., Milwaukee; Wilde, Bree Grossi, Madison; Sterken, Krista J., Madison; For Respondent: Fergal, James M., Waukesha; Weis, Dana J., Rhinelander; Meagher, Linda V., Waukesha; Rogers, Christopher E., Madison