Dan Ryan and Carolyn Bohmueller secured a defense verdict in favor of a hospital following a six day jury trial in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The plaintiff, a prominent local celebrity, alleged that a hematologist/oncologist failed to properly diagnose her rare condition called POEMS (polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, monoclonal gammopathy, and skin lesions) syndrome and failed to offer her appropriate treatment. The hematologist/oncologist was on staff at the hospital, and alleged to be an ostensible agent of the hospital. Plaintiff claimed that the standard of care required that she should have been referred for a second opinion, she should have been diagnosed with POEMS, and high dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation should have been recommended. Plaintiff claimed that, as a result of the alleged negligence, she suffered a loss of earning capacity which exceeded $7,000,000, as well as pain and suffering and loss of life’s pleasures. The defense for the hospital rebutted agency and substantive claims, and presented evidence that the use of high dose chemotherapy with stem cell transplantation for POEMS syndrome was experimental at the time, and is still not considered to be the standard of care for treatment of POEMS syndrome. The jury determined that neither the hospital nor the physician were negligent.
