Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A Michigan appellate court held that a cardiologist who spoke to a patient’s treating physician in a hospital ER and provided advice regarding the patient’s treatment owed the patient a duty of care.

Jay Wesenick, who had a history of coronary bypass surgery, went to the McLaren Bay Region Hospital ER, where he was seen by ER physician Ernest Sorini. Sorini ordered an electrocardiogram, which revealed ST depressions. Testing also revealed that Wesenick’s troponin level was abnormal. Sorini performed a cardioversion, after which Wesenick vomited. Sorini then ordered a chest X-ray, which revealed that Wesenick was suffering from congestive heart failure.

Sorini, who allegedly believed Wesenick had suffered an NSTEMI heart attack, consulted an internist, who told him to call a cardiologist. Sorini contacted the on-call cardiologist, Kuchunni Mohan, who allegedly advised him to admit Wesenick to the cardiac stepdown unit.
There, Wesenick’s condition worsened, and he was transferred to the ICU in respiratory distress. The next morning, another cardiologist ordered a cardiac catheterization, which revealed that one of Wesenick’s coronary artery grafts was completely occluded. During the procedure, he suffered cardiac arrest and died shortly after.

Suit against Mohan alleged the defendant had breached the standard of care by failing to consider that Wesenick had suffered a posterior myocardial infarction, review the EKG, and come to the hospital on an urgent basis and perform a catheterization. The defendant moved twice for summary judgment. Among other things, the defendant argued that he had no duty to provide medical services to Wesenick because the parties had not established a physician-patient relationship. The trial court denied the motions.

Affirming, the court noted that medical negligence occurs only in the context of a professional relationship. Here, the court said, the defendant had participated in Wesenick’s diagnosis and treatment by allegedly stating that he should be placed in a stepdown unit instead of undergoing an immediate cardiac catheterization.

Moreover, the court said that the evidence shows that Sorini understood that the defendant, the on-call physician that night, had agreed to undertake Wesenick’s cardiology care and had access to his EKG. The defendant’s instruction to transfer Wesenick to the stepdown unit was not perceived as an informal recommendation, the court said.

Thus, the court reasoned, the evidence supported the conclusion that by affirmatively agreeing to direct Wesenick’s treatment, the defendant had entered into a physician-patient relationship that triggered a duty of care.

Citation: Wesenick v. Mohan, 2022 WL 2760359 (Mich. Ct. App. July 14, 2022).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ member Steffani E. Chocron and Marc E. Lipton, both of Southfield, Mich.