Hall v. Hibun

In 1985, a case was brought forward against Dr. Hilbun, a general surgeon who performed surgery on Terry Hall. She was complaining about abdominal pain. He consulted and operated on her for a small bowel obstruction, which she consented to. After he observed her in the recovery room, he left for the night. Throughout the night, she started having more and more pain and her vital signs were abnormal, but Dr. Hilbun was never notified of such pain. He was notified about another patient of his and failed to check up on Mrs. Hall and she later died of respiratory failure in the morning. The nurses at the hospital were never ordered to call him if things changed with Mrs. Hall. An autopsy was done and it showed that a sponge had been left in her abdominal cavity but it did not cause her death. Mrs. Hall's husband filed a malpractice/wrongful death case against Dr. Hilbun stating that he failed to follow-up after the operation and give post-operation instructions to the nursing staff. At the trial, Hall's husband called Dr. Hoerr as a witness but was disqualified because he was not familiar with the local standard of care, only the national one. After reading about this case, I believe that Dr. Hilbun was at fault for the four D's of negligence. The first D is duty, which there was a patient and physician relationship. He did perform an exploratory laparotomy on her for a bowel obstruction after she came in for abdominal pain. The second would be derelict, which means the patient would have to prove the physician failed to comply with standards