Can the average person judge medical right from wrong?
Among the jurors in the Tampa trial of Cheatwood vs. Mendoza and St. Joseph's Hospital, only Claire-Jeanne Ybanez, an insurance agent who favors capping malpractice jury awards, comes close to having a medical background. She has a bachelor's degree in microbiology, and her husband is a dentist.
Yet during six days of testimony, the jurors watch physicians mimic complex surgical procedures and hear about conditions such as thrombocytopenia and peripheral vascular disease.
As if the medical details weren't numbing enough, the testimony is punctuated by countless objections and side conferences over legal procedure. Eyelids droop as some jurors nearly nod off. Jury foreman Joseph Wright succumbs to nausea, thanks to a graphic illustration of a cardiac catheterization.
Kept off the jury are panelists who express a bias or who one attorney or another suspects will vote the "wrong" way.
Potential jurors rejected in this case include one who had successful open-heart surgery at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, where plaintiff Cliff Cheatwood lost his leg, and another who once filed a malpractice suit herself.
One surprise: Cheatwood's attorney permits Hilary Hopkins to join the jury. Hopkins, a Tampa wedding photographer whose husband is a medical malpractice defense attorney, says during jury selection that malpractice juries shouldn't be "making millionaires" of plaintiffs.
