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Doctor failed to follow through, estate’s lawyer says
YOUNGSTOWN
A 31-year-old man died of a heart attack after his physician failed to order an electrocardiogram or a stress test or refer him to a cardiologist in response to his repeated complaints of exercise-induced chest pain over a three-month period, a lawyer for the man’s estate told jurors in a medical- malpractice trial.
The lawyer, Robert B. Sickels of Southfield, Mich., presented jurors with the allegations in a medical-malpractice lawsuit he had filed against Dr. Steven Swain on behalf of the estate of Shawn Coin, the Youngstown State University football video coordinator, who died Aug. 18, 2008, after being stricken at YSU.
Coin, who was 6-feet-1-inch tall and weighed 306 pounds, had told Dr. Swain it felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, Sickels said.
In his opening statement, Sickels also said Dr. Swain, a family physician whose office was in Austintown, failed to obtain a complete medical history, including the fact that Coin’s father suffered from coronary artery disease and underwent coronary artery bypass surgery at age 50.
The trial, in which opening statements were Monday and Tuesday, is before visiting Judge Thomas P. Curran of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
“This is not a case about hindsight. You will learn from the evidence that Dr. Swain had three months [from Coin’s first complaint of chest pain] to do the testing and make his diagnosis” before Coin died, Sickels said.
Dr. Swain diagnosed Coin’s condition as costochondritis, an inflammation of the cartilage connecting the ribs to the breastbone, the lawsuit said.
In defense of Dr. Swain, Atty. Michael J. Hudak of Canfield, whose office is in Akron, said Coin failed to report his father’s coronary artery disease history or bypass surgery on a patient questionnaire and failed to follow through with a blood draw for routine tests Dr. Swain told him he should have undergone.
Hudak also said Coin did not report to Dr. Swain the type of radiating pain in his arms, back or jaw or perspiration that is typically associated with coronary artery disease.
When Dr. Swain listened to Coin’s heart through a stethoscope, he found a regular rate and rhythm and no murmurs, Hudak said.
“I believe that you will find that Dr. Swain was not negligent,” Hudak told the jurors. “I believe that you will find that his actions were not the direct and proximate cause of the death of Shawn Coin,” he added.
Another defendant, Dr. Mary Barringer of St. Elizabeth Health Center’s Austintown emergency center, made an undisclosed pretrial financial settlement with Coin’s estate.
Dr. Swain recently left his Austintown office practice and is now associate director of the family practice residency training program at ValleyCare Northside Medical Center.
Hudak estimated the trial would last until the middle of next week.