Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A Florida appellate court held that a physician may be liable for failing to disclose that he had never performed a robotic surgical procedure without supervision.

Rex Yentes and his wife sued physician Xenofon Papadopoulos and the Bond & Steele Clinic, P.A., alleging the physician had been negligent in obtaining Yentes’s informed consent for a robotic prostatectomy. The plaintiffs asserted that the defendant physician had failed to inform them that he had never performed the procedure or had performed it on a limited basis, and that there would be a proctor attending the surgery. The plaintiffs claimed that had the defendant met the standard of care, Yentes would not have chosen to undergo the surgery. The defense moved successfully for judgment on the pleadings.

Reversing, the appellate court noted that the state’s medical consent law provides a list of information a physician must relay to a patient in order to obtain informed consent. The statute does not provide an exhaustive list, the court said, noting that physicians owe a duty to inform, which varies from case to case. A patient must understand the procedure, the alternatives, and the risks inherent in the procedure, the court noted.

Here, the court found, there is a question of fact remaining on whether expert testimony would establish that the defendant had failed to disclose pertinent information when obtaining informed consent from Yentes and whether a reasonable patient would have foregone surgery with the defendant if told he had never performed the surgery unsupervised. Nevertheless, the court acknowledged that it was not establishing a new duty requiring a physician to disclose the number of times he or she has performed a specific procedure.

Consequently, the court remanded.

Citation: Yentes v. Papadopoulos, 2022 WL 17366033 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Dec. 2, 2022).

Plaintiff counsel: Karl F. Pansler, Chase R. Pansler, and Hyat Katramiz, all of Lakeland, Fla.