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October 7, 2008

Patient suing practice over knee operation

By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

Jurors began hearing testimony Tuesday in the trial of a Webb City woman’s malpractice claim against Midwest Orthopaedic Surgery Inc. of Joplin.

Rebecca Adkins, 53, an office manager at McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital in Carthage, is seeking compensation for past and future medical expenses and loss of earnings because of what she alleges was a botched knee-replacement surgery performed in 2003 by Dr. David Black.

Jurors were selected Monday for the trial that is expected to wrap up by Friday in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin, with Judge David Mouton presiding.

The plaintiff alleges that Black performed a total knee replacement on her when she had a partial knee infection, leading to the necessity for several additional surgeries, including second and third total knee replacements at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

Her attorney, Glenn Gulick, told jurors during opening statements that a partial knee infection is an “absolute contraindication” for total joint surgery, that Black failed to rule out the possibility of an infection before surgery, and that he exacerbated the infection by replacing Adkins’ knee with an artificial metal one. The alleged negligence forced Adkins to endure seven major surgeries in all, 56 days in hospitals and 106 days with no knee at all, Gulick said.

Kent Hyde, attorney for Midwest Orthopaedic Surgery, argued that Adkins wanted the total knee replacement, and that Black did nothing wrong in performing the surgery when he did. He said testimony will show that there was no indication of an infection in her knee before the surgery in 2003, and that when she came back with pain after the operation and the knee had to be taken back out, she had “a different bug entirely,” a risk in any surgery of that type.

Hyde told jurors that Adkins was satisfied the entire time she was under Black’s care, and that he referred her to the Mayo Clinic because of the persistence of her knee problems despite his best efforts and not any negligence on his part.

“She’s just got a bad knee,” Hyde said. “She’s had it operated on multiple times.”

Black is not being sued individually by the plaintiff but is acting as corporate representative of Midwest Orthopaedic Surgery in the trial.

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