A radiologist accused of misreading an MRI—leading to an $18M pretrial settlement to the accusers—says he met the standard of care, while slamming allegations he was unqualified.
Seattle-based Luvera Law Firm first revealed the eight-figure agreement Wednesday, March 3, with its 61-year-old client and her family reportedly slated to receive the funds. Local client Isabel De Jesus-Congdon suffered brain damage after a catastrophic stroke in 2016, which her husband and daughters claim an attending radiologist should have caught.
On Friday, physician Richard Travis Clark, MD, and his former practice Seattle Radiologists responded. In a statement to Radiology Business, they described Jesus-Congdon’s injuries as “unfortunate.” But the defense presented testimony from a trio of board-certified diagnostic rads, backing the accused clinician’s claims.
“All three defense expert radiologists testified that Dr. Clark met the standard of care,” Clark, MD, and attorneys Mark Melter and Michele Atkins, who are providing counsel for Seattle Radiologists, PS, said in a March 5 statement.
The firm cited further testimony from a neurosurgeon, who believed the “vast majority” of Congdon’s stroke injuries resulted from a hemorrhage prior to the fateful MRI. Clark and attorneys bristled at assertions the radiologist, contracted by Swedish Health system, was not capable of interpreting the scans.
“Dr. Clark is a board-certified radiologist, fellowship-trained in emergency radiology. The claim that he was not qualified to interpret Mrs. Congdon’s head imaging is categorically false and was repeatedly denied under oath by the Congdon family’s own radiology experts during their depositions,” the statement read.
The Congdon family first filed suit against hospital system Swedish Health, Clark, Seattle Radiologists and others in 2018, and the original incident occurred in October 2016. According to the patient’s attorneys, the parties reached the settlement in September, but the terms were not released until March 3 after court approval.
You can read more about the case in our original story here and find the full statement from Clark et al. pasted below. Attorneys representing Seattle Radiologists declined to answer further questions.
“While Mrs. Congdon’s injuries are unfortunate, the defense presented expert testimony from three board-certified diagnostic radiologists who each testified that they performed blind reviews of the MRI imaging at issue and, like Dr. Clark, interpreted the images as normal. All three defense expert radiologists testified that Dr. Clark met the standard of care. The defense further presented the opinions of a board-certified neurosurgeon who testified that the vast majority of Mrs. Congdon’s stroke injuries resulted from hemorrhage occurring before the MRI was taken and, therefore, did not result from the alleged negligence against Dr. Clark. Finally, Dr. Clark is a board-certified radiologist, fellowship-trained in emergency radiology. The claim that he was not qualified to interpret Mrs. Congdon's head imaging is categorically false and was repeatedly denied under oath by the Congdon family’s own radiology experts during their depositions.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.