Malpractice trial focuses on doctor with temporary privileges
The malpractice trial began yesterday for John Christian Gunn, MD whose patient Herberta “Bertie” Lang died after carotid artery surgery. Prosecutors gave the jury multiple reasons why Gunn should not have been granted temporary privileges to perform the surgery, including his questionable clinical judgments and multiple failed certification exams, according to an August 5 article in The Ledger Independent.
Lang’s family is accusing the hospital where Gunn worked and its parent company of corporate negligence. Meadowview Regional Medical Center in Maysville, KY granted Gunn temporary privileges from September 2005 to January 2006.
Although the case focuses on corporate negligence and not negligent credentialing, the jury is hearing credentialing facts, including Gunn’s five consecutive failures to pass his board certification exam. The hospital’s counsel told jurors that the medical staff did not require board certification and that this practice is not uncommon at hospitals.
Gunn is currently serving time in prison on bank robbery charges.
About the Author: Emily Berry is an associate editor at HCPro in the credentialing market. In addition to managing information on CRC she writes the Briefings on Credentialing newsletter and the Credentialing Resource Center Connection weekly email newsletter. A native of Ohio, she graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland before moving east to attain her MS degree in journalism from Boston University. She’s always looking for new ideas for articles, so if you have any to share, please email her at 
Charles A. PIetrafesa, MD, MBA | Aug 19, 2009 | Reply
Negligent credentialing or corporate negligence claims supported or defended by physician credentialing facts are becoming ubiquitous. Multiple factors are feeding this flame: abililty to draw in deep-pocket defendants with a claim unrestricted by malpractice reform caps, readily available practitoner profiling and performance data frequently obtainable despite peer review discovery protection statutes, renewed focus by the Joint Commission on FPPE/OPPE standards and an evolving medical quality culture characterized by transparency and accountabilty. In this environment, it is more important than ever for the accountable governing bodies of healthcare organizations to carefully examine and mitigate their risk in this area. In-depth self-examination and remedial action regarding what is known or could be known about their physicians’ performance is the first step. Did the organization resonably and prudently identify, address and document trends and deficiencies? Were monitoring and interventions adequate? Relying on the conventional indicator or occurrence-based medical staff peer review process may not be sufficient.
Jonathan Paul | Oct 21, 2009 | Reply
Clinical negligence occurs when a professional in the health service provided care that was below standard and this caused physical injury, or caused or increased a mental illness. Negligence may occur from delay or failure to diagnose a condition, delay or failure to treat a condition, when a treatment goes wrong, use of the wrong treatment, or failure to obtain consent. Due to the complexity that medical negligence cases are often associated to, a medical negligence lawyer will have the ability to carry out an investigation in order to gather evidence that medical negligence did occur that is necessary in proving a medical negligence case. Questions regarding a possible case of medical negligence should be directed at a qualified medical negligence lawyer. Click here for more information.