Source: Silive.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Annadale resident Stephanie Hare was only 19 years old when a cancerous lesion was detected on her tongue in April 2004. By that time, it was too late.
Despite undergoing surgery to remove most of her tongue and submitting to painful radiation and chemotherapy treatments, the vivacious young woman who aspired to be a teacher died seven months later at the age of 20.
Ms. Hare’s family contends her orthodontist, Dr. Michael J. Donato of Richmond, was responsible for her death by failing to detect the lesion during a December 2003 visit. However, a jury in state Supreme Court, St. George, disagreed.
The panel on Wednesday found Dr. Donato was not negligent and had followed standard dental practices and care when he examined Ms. Hare on Dec. 19, 2003.
“Stephanie’s death was not anybody’s fault,” Dr. Donato’s lawyer, Douglas J. Fitzmorris, told jurors in his summation. “Stephanie died of cancer. Dr. Donato’s not to blame. The whole specter of this lesion being missed by Dr. Donato is not what happened. There was no deviation from accepted practice.”
Jason C. Molesso, the lawyer for Ms. Hare’s family, had asked jurors to consider a $2.3 million award for her pain and suffering if they found Dr. Donato liable.
“This case is about choices,” Molesso told jurors in his closing argument as Ms. Hare’s family wept and hugged each other in the audience. “We have to live and die with the choices we make, but certain times we depend upon others to make the choices we live and die with.”
“When she was diagnosed with cancer, all the choices she had made about her life were going to be taken away from her. She died in a hospital bed of metastatic tongue cancer that was diagnosed when she was seeing a dentist once a month,” said Molesso. “You lost a productive person who cared a lot about other people.”
Molesso could not immediately be reached yesterday for comment.
The case, which was tried over two weeks before Justice Joseph J. Maltese, hinged on several factors; namely, whether jurors believed the lesion was present on Dec. 19, 2003, whether Dr. Donato should have found it, and whether he followed standard dental practices during the exam and treatment of Ms. Hare.
According to court papers, Rosemary Hare, Ms. Hare’s mother, testified she first saw a “small bump” under her daughter’s tongue around Thanksgiving 2003. A month earlier, two different dentists had examined Stephanie and found no signs of lesions or cancer.
Citing multiple hospital records, Molesso, the Hares’ lawyer, contended Stephanie complained to Dr. Donato about soreness and bleeding in her mouth during a routine visit on Dec. 19, 2003. Dr. Donato had fitted Stephanie with braces about a year earlier.
However, there were no notations in Dr. Donato’s files for Dec. 19, 2003, regarding such a complaint.
Dr. Donato treated Ms. Hare again in January and March of 2004. There is no record of her complaining about mouth soreness on those visits although Dr. Donato smoothed an orthodontic band on her braces in January.
On April 5, 2004, Dr. Donato noted there was a cancerous-type lesion on Ms. Hare’s tongue. He removed a band near the lesion and prescribed a saline rinse. She returned two weeks later and Dr. Donato removed another band and referred her to an oral surgeon, who prescribed antibiotics.
A May 12, 2004, biopsy came back positive for squamous cell cancer and Ms. Hare subsequently underwent painful surgery and treatment. She couldn’t be saved.
Molesso said Ms. Hare’s cancer was in the advanced Stage 4 when it was diagnosed in May 2004. By that time, Ms. Hare’s chances of survival were less than 25 percent, he told jurors, maintaining it should have been detected earlier.
His oncology expert testified the cancer likely would have been in the less lethal Stage 1 in December 2003. Had it been detected then, Ms. Hare’s survival chances would have exceeded 80 percent, he said.
Fitzmorris, the defense lawyer, maintained the various histories provided by Ms. Hare and her family for some hospital records was “unreliable.”
He said other hospital records showed Ms. Hare had complained of a “vague discomfort” on the left side of her tongue in November 2003, attributed it to her braces and did not seek medical help.
Dr. Donato’s experts testified that he followed accepted procedures.
One, an orthodontist, said that if a patient complained of small bump in her mouth, he would monitor the situation but wouldn’t immediately prescribe further tests.
In addition, defense experts testified that tongue cancer was extremely rare in a patient of Ms. Hare’s age and physical condition, and would not have been among the first considerations in assessing her complaints.
In any case, Fitzmorris maintained the cancer spread so rapidly, there was little hope for Ms. Hare, even had it been detected in December 2003.
“Our sympathies continue to go out to the family for the tragic loss of such a sweet girl,” Fitzmorris said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Obviously, we were able to convince the jury, and, hopefully, the family, that Stephanie’s death was the direct result of the extraordinarily aggressive and rare nature of the cancer and not the result of the care rendered by Dr. Donato or any other medical or dental provider.”
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