John Babcock and Noel Dumas Secure a Defense Verdict in a Six-Day Medical Malpractice Trial in Middlesex Superior Court.

John Babcock and Noel Dumas secured a defense verdict in a six-day medical malpractice trial in Middlesex Superior Court. The plaintiff claimed that our client, a primary care physician, failed to appropriately adjust the patient’s Warfarin dosage over a two-week period, causing persistent subtherapeutic INR levels and resulting in an embolic stroke. The patient had recently undergone knee-replacement surgery.  After developing an infection, the patient was prescribed a rare antibiotic normally used to treat tuberculosis. The hospital infectious disease service noted that this rare drug actually lowers INR, whereas most antibiotics cause INR levels to rise. However, our client was not copied on this note until after the patient’s stroke occurred. Our experts opined at trial that our client made timely and appropriate adjustments under the circumstances, and that it would be overly speculative to suggest that the stroke was caused by the small-time frame of subtherapeutic INR levels, rather than the patient’s underlying risk related to atrial fibrillation.