Port Angeles Doctor Criticized -- But Experts Say Death Of Baby Was Inevitable

SEATAC - Medical experts say Port Angeles pediatrician Eugene Turner was wrong to cover the mouth and nose of an unresponsive, gasping 3-day-old infant after four hours of unsuccessful resuscitation efforts. But they said it was extremely unlikely the child, Conor McInnerney, could have survived anyway.

"That is not part of traditional medicine. I understand the rationale, given the situation he was in . . . but it's not part of the standard of care," Dr. Craig Jackson, a Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center physician, testified yesterday in the first day of a three-day state disciplinary hearing at the Airport Hilton regarding Turner's action Jan. 12, 1998.

Turner, 63, is charged by the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission with three counts of unprofessional conduct and could lose his medical license. He treated the child after he was brought to Olympic Memorial Hospital without a heartbeat or respiration. Autopsy results did not explain why the breathing and heart stopped.

Jackson and Dr. Charles Bender, an expert on newborns testifying for the state, both said the child's condition throughout the resuscitation efforts indicated he was extremely brain damaged, despite at one point regaining sporadic breathing and a heartbeat.

"It was extremely unlikely the child would survive and be discharged from the hospital," said Bender, a physician at Magee Women's Hospital, in Pittsburgh.

Jackson said, at one point, "It would be a shame for Dr. Turner to lose his license and have the community denied his expert medical care."

Jackson and Bender said Turner appropriately stopped resuscitation efforts after about two hours because the effort appeared futile for long-term survival. They said the baby was not technically dead at this point because he still had minimal brain activity.

The baby later began occasional, reflexive breathing and developed a regular heartbeat, prompted by four earlier injections of stimulants.

Turner then resumed resuscitation efforts. But it was questionable to do that, Bender said, because the child's ultimate chance of survival still remained extremely low, he was terribly brain damaged, and because his parents had earlier thought it appropriate to stop resuscitation.

More appropriate action, Bender said, would have been "compassionate" care. "I would have wrapped him in a blanket, I or a nurse, and . . . rocked him until he died," Bender said.

Bender and Jackson also said if the child appeared uncomfortable - occasionally gasping - an injection of morphine for pain would have been appropriate. Such an injection also could have fatally suppressed respiration, they said.

Two nurses who helped in the resuscitation - Laurie Boucher and Vicki Hallberg-Gross - testified they were dismayed by Turner covering the child's nose and mouth.

Fighting tears, they recounted seeing the infant's pink color and occasional breathing return - though further resuscitation efforts did not restore full breathing and the baby's eyes remained fixed and dilated, a sign of severe brain injury. They wondered why the doctor couldn't have tried still longer.

Hallberg-Gross said that when she saw Turner's hand over the baby's nose and mouth, he said: "I can't have this go on anymore."