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Jury clears Geisinger in mother of four’s death
DANVILLE — A Montour County jury has cleared Geisinger Medical Center and two physicians of negligence in a civil court case involving a Shamokin woman who died following surgery eight years ago.
The jury deliberated about an hour Wednesday afternoon before reaching its verdict, according to a court spokesman.
The lawsuit filed by the family of Patrice Dupnock, 48, alleges the hospital and doctors Suresh Nair and David J. Bertsch, performed an unnecessary mastectomy, failed to properly assess her before and after the surgery and did not follow proper procedures when she went into cardiac arrest.
Dupnock’s husband, Michael, was seeking monetary damages to pay the $30,890 medical and funeral expenses, and an unspecified amount for the loss of his wife and the mother of their four children.
At the time of Dupnock’s death, her children were 26, 21, 13 and 11 and she was employed as a resource manager at the State Correctional Institution at Coal Township.
“We don’t want one penny for sympathy. We want justice,” said the plaintiff’s Philadelphia attorney, Gary Solomon, after describing the family’s anguish and displaying in court photos taken of Dupnock with her youngest children a few months before she died.
During the two-week trial, both sides presented numerous expert witnesses who gave conflicting testimony.
The plaintiffs said the physicians persisted in performing a mastectomy even though cancer wasn’t found in the breast after it was removed.
They alleged a drug given to Dupnock during treatment damaged her heart; cardiovascular scans were not properly performed before and did not detect the problem that caused her to stop breathing and led to her death 38 hours after surgery.
When Dupnock went into cardiac arrest in the hospital, Solomon also argued, the hospital staff did not follow protocol.
“Her cancer couldn’t be cured, but it was treatable and she could have lived for several more years,” he said, referring to expert testimony.
The defendants said Dupnock’s death was unavoidable and that she was already suffering from a rare and aggressive cancer by the time she went for treatment at Geisinger in July 2001.
Her death three months later, they said, was due to microscopic cancer cells that had spread from her breast to her brain.
Geisinger attorney, Anna Bryan, of Philadelphia, disputed the plaintiff’s claim that Dupnock was forced into having a mastectomy and described “heroic efforts” by hospital staff to save her the morning of Oct. 18, 2001.
Dr. Nair’s attorney, Mark Perry, of Scranton, said even if an MRI had been done, it would not have detected the small cancer cells that were later found in her brain during the autopsy.
He said Dupnock received appropriate care and no malpractice occurred.
Dr. Bertsch’s attorney, Daniel Robner, of Berwyn, defended his client’s decision not to continuously monitor Dupnock’s heart because she had displayed no problems in that area.
He said the physicians provided her the best treatment and care possible and should not be held to an unreasonable standard.
“It’s the practice of medicine, not the perfection of medicine. It’s an art as much as a science,” Robner said.
n E-mail comments to mmoore@dailyitem.com
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