Physician defends child's 2nd surgery

By ANITA KUMAR

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 17, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- For the last five years of her short life, Jessica Roud was a prisoner in her small, cancer-ravaged body.

She couldn't move from her neck down. She couldn't see. She couldn't swallow.

It didn't have to be that way, her father says.

Richard Roud blames Jessica's condition on Dr. Louis Solomon, who operated on the 7-year-old girl a second time in 1994 to try to remove a brain tumor that was spreading through her body. Now, Roud is asking a jury to agree with him.

"Nobody has ever heard of any child being devastated this much after surgery," Richard Shapiro, Roud's attorney, said Tuesday. "There shouldn't have been a second surgery."

Solomon, the only pediatric neurosurgeon at All Children's Hospital at that time, said he operated on Jessica for a second time in two days so he could remove as much of the tumor as possible.

"Our position is that the care rendered by Dr. Solomon was proper care, reasonable care and appropriate care," said Clifford Somers, Solomon's attorney. "What he did helped prolong her life."

Jessica, who lived in Sarasota, died on Valentine's Day 1999 from cancer at age 11. Solomon is not being blamed for her death, but for causing her extensive neurological damage.

The dark-haired little girl remained popular, even after she left Catholic school to be homeschooled. Her former classmates continued to visit and prayed for her. She loved listening to her father read stories and hearing Disney movies.

She almost never complained about her condition, although she was occasionally afraid her father had left her because she couldn't see where he was.

"I'm not going to let a stupid little tumor bother me," Jessica said in April 1998.

And she didn't.

She wrote a play about a princess who wants to be a regular person by reciting into a tape recorder. She took acting classes, where her cast mates moved her body for her so she could perform. She even beat out thousands of elementary students in 1998 in a national playwright competition, which made her something of a celebrity in her hometown.

"She was a trouper," Roud said. "She taught a lot of people about life."

A six-person jury will decide whether Solomon should be held liable and how much, if anything, the doctor should pay in damages to Roud and his ex-wife, Helen Barry.

The medical malpractice trial in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court is expected to wrap up in two weeks. Almost 50 witnesses are expected to testify, including several prominent doctors from across the nation.

Mrs. Barry, who lives in Sarasota, did not attend the trial. Shapiro and Roud said she was not able to handle the emotion of the case.

Roud and Mrs. Barry separated when Jessica was just 1 year old. After her surgery, Roud quit his job and took care of his daughter around the clock with the financial support of his brother.

Jessica was playing ball with other children at school March 20, 1994, when she fell and hit her head. An MRI revealed a brain tumor.

Her pediatrician referred her to Solomon, who admitted her to the hospital the same day. Solomon operated on her for 10 hours March 24. Afterward, he told her family he had removed the entire tumor, Shapiro said.

But a second MRI showed some of it remained. Solomon tried to remove the remainder in a second surgery March 26.

Before the second surgery, Jessica was able to move, speak and see, Shapiro said. Afterward, she was almost comatose, and wasn't able to speak for a year, he said.

Jessica slowly improved, but was never able to walk, swallow or see again.

In opening statements, Shapiro said Solomon should have known not to operate on Jessica a second time because the tumor had spread to her brain stem. He said there was no way Solomon could have removed the entire tumor, so she should have had radiation treatment.

Shapiro called Solomon to the witness stand briefly Tuesday. At first, Solomon said he did not know Jessica's tumor had spread, but later said he thought it might have but did not tell other doctors.

"My goal for this child was to remove as much as possible," he said.

Both Shapiro and Somers said their medical experts would support their claims. The first to be put on the witness stand, Dr. Dennis Johnson of Penn State University, said Solomon should not have operated again.

"It's foolish to put the child at risk like that," he said. "It really makes no sense."

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