The Tampa General patient is partly paralyzed by a stroke after an intern inserted a catheter into her brain.

TAMPA- A jury awarded $1.7-million Thursday to a woman partly paralyzed after a 1992 surgical procedure performed by a medical intern who was serving his residency at Tampa General Hospital.
     Pat McEachern, 54 said she was not told that a University of South Florida resident four months out of medical school would be performing a diagnostic procedure involving a catheter in her brain while the experienced doctor who had discussed the procedure with her looked on.
     "All of us are patients, including the jurors," her attorney, Wil Florin, said after the verdict Thursday. "We all deserve better than to be treated like we're an assembly line number in the business of medicine."
     Mrs. McEachern, who is partly paralyzed on her right side and walks with a leg brace and a cane, thanked the jury.
     "I think it's very important to get it out to the public that they have to check at the hospital on who's doing the operation," she said.
     "We as human beings do have the right to know," said her husband Ray McEachern, who has founded a statewide patients' rights group called the Association for Responsible Medicine.
     After five hours of deliberation, the jury found the Florida Board of Regents, along with medical resident Dr. Daniel Bierne, 25 percent negligent in what happened to Mrs. McEachern. The doctor who supervised the procedure, Thomas J. Black and his partnership, were found to have been 75 percent negligent.
     There is a $200,000 cap on what the McEacherns can recover from the Broad of Regents, which oversees state universities, because it is a state agency. The remainder of the money must be sought through the Legislature. Florin said he will discuss with his clients whether they will pursue that.
     Dr. Black reached a confidential settlement with the McEacherns before the trial.
     In October 1992, Mrs. McEachern was sent to Tampa General Hospital with a suspected brain aneurysm. She was scheduled for a cerebral angiogram, in which a catheter is inserted through the body to inspect the brain.
     Dr. Black did not tell Mrs. McEachern that Dr. Bierne, who had done the procedure four times before, would be performing it. About five minutes into the procedure, the catheter met resistance, twisted and got stuck.
     Mr. McEachern ultimately suffered a partly paralyzing stroke, which her attorney said occurred because the catheter tore the artery in her brain.
     Dr. Martin Silbiger, dean of USF's College of Medicine, testified in the trial that Mrs. McEachern should have been told who was doing the procedure.
     "The Patient has a right to know," he said.