Cereno v. CA (G.R. No. 167366; September 26, 2012)

CASE DIGEST: DR. PEDRO DENNIS CERENO, and DR. SANTOS ZAFE, Petitioners, v. COURT OF APPEALS, SPOUSES DIOGENES S. OLAVERE and FE R. SERRANO, Respondents.

FACTS: At about 9:15 in the evening of 16 September 1995, Raymond S. Olavere (Raymond), a victim of a stabbing incident, was rushed to the Bicol Regional Medical Center (BRMC). Dr. Realuyo, the emergency room resident physician, recommended that Raymond should undergo blood transfusion.

At 10:30 P.M., Raymond was brought inside the operating room. During that time, the hospital surgeons, Drs. Zafe and Cereno, were busy operating on gunshot victim Charles Maluluy-on. Assisting them in the said operation was Dr. Rosalina Tatad (Dr. Tatad), who was the only senior anesthesiologist on duty at BRMC that night. Just before the operation on Maluluy-on was finished, another emergency case involving Lilia Aguila, a woman who was giving birth to triplets, was brought to the operating room.

Drs. Zafe and Cereno, in the meantime, proceeded to examine Raymond and they found that the latters blood pressure was normal and "nothing in him was significant." There being no other available anesthesiologist to assist them, Drs. Zafe and Cereno decided to defer the operation on Raymond.

At 11:15 P.M., the relatives of Raymond brought the bag of blood to be used for blood transfusion. Drs. Cereno and Zafe immediately started their operation on Raymond at around 12:15 A.M. of 17 September 1995. Upon opening of Raymonds thoracic cavity, they found that 3,200 cc of blood was stocked therein. Dr. Cereno did not immediately transfuse the blood since the bleeders had to be controlled first. Blood was finally transfused on Raymond at 1:40 A.M. However, during the operation, Raymond died due to massive loss of blood.

Claiming that there was negligence on the part of those who attended to their son, the parents of Raymond (herein respondents) filed a complaint for damages against Drs. Zafe and Cereno. The RTC found Drs. Zafe and Cereno negligent for not immediately conducting surgery on Raymond. On appeal, the CA affirmed RTCs findings.

ISSUE: Are Drs. Zafe and Cereno guilty of gross negligence in the performance of their duties?
HELD: The type of lawsuit which has been called medical malpractice or, more appropriately, medical negligence, is that type of claim which a victim has available to him or her to redress a wrong committed by a medical professional which has caused bodily harm. In order to successfully pursue such a claim, a patient must prove that a health care provider, in most cases a physician, either failed to do something which a reasonably prudent health care provider would have done, or that he or she did something that a reasonably prudent provider would not have done; and that the failure or action caused injury to the patient.

Given that Dr. Tatad was already engaged in another urgent operation and that Raymond was not showing any symptom of suffering from major blood loss requiring an immediate operation, We find it reasonable that petitioners decided to wait for Dr. Tatad to finish her surgery and not to call the standby anesthesiologist anymore. There is, after all, no evidence that shows that a prudent surgeon faced with similar circumstances would decide otherwise.

In medical negligence cases, it is settled that the complainant has the burden of establishing breach of duty on the part of the doctors or surgeons. It must be proven that such breach of duty has a causal connection to the resulting death of the patient.

Upon opening of his thoracic cavity, it was discovered that there was gross bleeding inside the body. Thus, the need for petitioners to control first what was causing the bleeding. GRANTED.