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Doctor in trouble

A P Kamath in New York

A gynaecologist, who was ordered by a New Jersey court to pay $ 2.1 million in a medical malpractice case, is expected to appeal the jury verdict.

Kasthuri Pothiraj's medical malpractice insurance pays only $ 1 million. Expecting an appeal, Jerrold Goldstein, attorney for plaintiffs Maria Enriquez, 52 and her husband, Bonfilio Enriquez, 54, said he did not expect payments to his clients in the near future.

The plaintiffs argued that Pothiraj, an OB/GYN specialist in New Brunswick, New Jersey, three years ago ordered total abdominal hysterectomy for the plaintiff to stop uterine bleeding without determining whether less severe procedures would have sufficed.

Joseph Lang, representing the doctor, denied wrongdoing on the part of his client and added that Maria Enriquez was aware of the risk to her ureter when she agreed to the surgery.

But Goldstein convinced the jurors that the surgery had damaged her ureter on the right side and made it impossible to control her urine. With the help of medical experts, he argued that Pothiraj did not discover the injury until about two weeks later. Maria Enriquez was then seen by a urologist who performed surgery to repair the ureter. Before the second surgery, she had used a nephrostomy tube and receptacle, Goldstein told the jurors.

The jurors took about 40 minutes to reach the verdict in the four-day trial.

Pothiraj's defence argued that when Maria Enriquez first consulted Kasthuri Pothiraj, the doctor discovered that Enriquez's uterus had been scraped a few months ago to remove polyps. So she decided against another scraping and performed hysterectomy. Goldstein argued that if Pothiraj had realised the potential damage she had caused to the patient, she would have been able to fix it on the operating table.

Repeated messages for Pothiraj asking for her comments were unanswered.

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