Senior Trial Partner Daniel L. Freidlin, Partners Anina H. Monte and Kerona K. Samuels, and Associate Justin J. Provvido secured summary judgment in a case involving a 77-year-oldsingle woman who moved from Puerto Rico to New York to seek a medical opinion regarding the cause of her severe postprandial abdominal pain. Plaintiff alleged that our client gastroenterologist failed to timely diagnose and treat mesenteric ischemia. It was alleged that the delay in diagnosis allowed the patient to progress from chronic mesenteric ischemia to acute mesenteric ischemia necessitating bowel resection with resultant short bowel syndrome and death.
MCB moved for summary judgment with the support of a gastroenterology expert who opined that our client appropriately suspected chronic mesenteric ischemia but could not safely order imaging with contrast to confirm the diagnosis. We demonstrated that our client suspected the possibility of chronic mesenteric ischemia at the decedent's initial office visit but his ability to confirm the diagnosis with contrast imaging was limited by decedent's chronic kidney insufficiency. We argued that our client appropriately admitted decedent to the hospital, ordered non-contrast testing to rule out other possible causes of the decedent's complaints and obtained consultation from nephrology to optimize the patient for contrast imaging. Unfortunately, while waiting for decedent's creatinine clearance to normalize, the patient's condition progressed to acute mesenteric ischemia. A surgical consultation was obtained to try to open any blockages in the mesenteric vessels, but treatable vessels could not be identified. It was argued that not only did our client conform to the standard of care, but that any alleged delay did not proximately cause the injuries because vascular surgery could not identify any vessels to treat. The plaintiff raised several arguments in opposition to our motion, but it was demonstrated that the arguments were not supported by the record. Our motion for summary judgment was granted and the case was dismissed in its entirety.