ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
Cowboy Patrick Brunson and spine surgeon Eric Korsh met at Lewis-Gale Clinic in Salem when Brunson came in with a back injury. They quickly formed a friendship that led to trail rides and a business venture buying horses in Oklahoma to sell in Western Virginia.
But the two are now locked in a lawsuit. Their relationships as doctor and patient and horse-loving friends have played before a jury in Roanoke Circuit Court since last Wednesday. Closing arguments will be given this morning.
Brunson is asking for $2 million from Korsh and the clinic, charging that Korsh persuaded him to have unnecessary surgery in April 1993 by promising a pain-free life and warning that he'd be paralyzed otherwise. He said Korsh told him he had a 99 percent surgery success rate.
Korsh said he never told Brunson those things.
"I wanted to try to reduce his pain," Korsh said Tuesday.
Brunson was selling drilling equipment when he was injured, but he also competed in rodeo barrel racing. He said the surgery Korsh performed left him in pain, unable to work or pursue his horse activities.
When the men were buddies, Brunson appeared with the doctor in a television interview about the success of spinal fusion surgery. At Korsh's September 1993 birthday party, Brunson gave the man he called "Doc Cowpoke" a rattlesnake-skin hatband.
Brunson became a "close personal friend," Korsh said.
When the horses they bought in Oklahoma didn't sell readily, the business deal and the friendship soured. Korsh sued Brunson to recover his investment. He said Brunson now wants revenge because of that. Korsh dropped the suit after Brunson supplied business documents, including bills and receipts, to Korsh's attorney.
Against this soap opera backdrop, jurors have to decide whether Korsh's treatment of Brunson was up to accepted medical standards or whether Brunson was operated on unnecessarily by a doctor eager to make money.
The jury must decide whether it was appropriate for Korsh to do surgery on Brunson within two months of first seeing him, or whether he should have tried more conservative treatment such as exercise and physical therapy. A question also raised was whether Brunson gave true informed consent for the surgery. He was not told that the screws and rods Korsh would put in his back were considered experimental for that use by the Food and Drug Administration.
Korsh said he used two informed-consent forms, and Brunson just happened to get the one that didn't mention that the pedicle screws were controversial for the lower-back surgery he did on Brunson.
The surgery was appropriate and Brunson improved after it, Korsh said.
To reinforce that claim, the defense showed a videotape of Brunson riding horses and driving a tractor pulling a bush hog during the time he said he could do little. An investigator shot the tapes from property adjoining Brunson's Copper Hill farm.
The jury was not allowed to hear the most potentially damaging testimony against Korsh. Eight other former patients said the doctor made promises and claims to them similar to those Brunson alleges: that they needed surgery or would be paralyzed, that they'd be able to return to activities with the surgery, and that the success rate for his surgery was 99 percent to 100 percent.
Their testimony, given in court but with the jury out of the room, becomes part of the record and will be there if the case is appealed, said Brunson's attorney, Daniel Frith.
Korsh's attorneys, John Jessee and Powell Leitch, argued against allowing the jury to hear the former patients, and Judge Kenneth Trabue concurred. Trabue said the testimony could lead to a mistrial by revealing to the jury that a number of malpractice suits are pending against Korsh and the clinic.
Court records indicate that more than 30 other suits have been filed.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff Dr. Eric Korsh (right) enters theby CNBRoanoke Courthouse, accompanied by his lead counsel, John Jessee.
color