JULY 26, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 4
Jean Matthies was eighty-one years old when she fell and broke her hip. She had been living alone in her apartment in Union City, New Jersey, and had been quite independent. She did her own shopping, cooking and housecleaning. But with a fractured hip, she could not even summon help; she lay undiscovered in her apartment for two days. When she was transported to a local hospital emergency room, she was deyhdrated and confused.
Dr. Edward Mastromonaco was the orthopedic surgeon called in on Ms. Matthies’ case. He considered her condition, medical history and x-rays, and decided not to undertake surgery for her broken hip. Instead, he prescribed what he called a “bed rest treatment.” Ms. Matthies was confined to her hospital bed for several days, followed by increasing periods in a chair and being assisted to walk around her hospital room.
There were several reasons Dr. Mastromonaco gave for deciding against the surgical alternative. He later testified that she was elderly, frail and in a weakened condition. She had, forty years earlier, suffered a stroke which left her partially paralyzed on her right side, and made her use her right leg as a “post,” pushing herself forward with her left leg. Besides, she suffered from osteoporosis, and Dr. Mastromonaco decided that her bones might be too porous to hold the surgical screws; if they weakened, she would later require hip replacement surgery.
Dr. Mastromonaco made his decision at least partly on the basis that he thought Ms. Matthies should not continue to live alone. In explaining his position later, he told the court that “I’m not going to give her that leg she wanted. She wanted to live alone, but she couldn’t live alone. . . . I wanted her to be at peace with herself in the confines of professional care, somebody to care for her. She could not live alone.”
Dr. Mastromonaco’s vision of what should happen with Ms. Matthies came to pass precisely as he suggested. After a short period of bed rest her right femur displaced, leaving her right leg shorter than her left. She never regained the ability to walk, and she now lives in a residential care facility.
Ms. Matthies sued Dr. Mastromonaco for medical malpractice, alleging both medical malpractice and a violation of principles of informed consent. She argued that Dr. Mastromonaco should have disclosed the surgical alternative and discussed the choices with her, rather than deciding on the “bed rest treatment” on his own.
Dr. Mastromonaco argued that there is not duty to secure informed consent to a non-invasive medical procedure, and the trial court agreed with him. The New Jersey Court of Appeals and the New Jersey Supreme Court did not, and reversed the award in favor of Dr. Mastromonaco.
“Choosing among medically reasonable treatment alternatives is a shared responsibility of physicians and patients,” wrote the court. “To discharge their responsibilities, patients should provide their physicians with the information necessary for them to make diagnoses and determine courses of treatment. Physicians, in turn, have a duty to evaluate the relevant information and disclose all courses of treatment that are medically reasonable under the circumstances. … [T]he ultimate decision is for the patient.” Dr. Mastromonaco must now show that he discharged his duty to adequately inform Ms. Matthies of her choices, both surgical and non-surgical. Matthies v. Mastromonaco, July 8, 1999.
