Gunapathy v Dr James Khoo (post 2)

On appeal, the case was titled as

Dr Khoo James and Another v Gunapathy d/o Muniandy and another appeal
[2002] 2 SLR 414; [2002] SGCA 25.

The Court of Appeal severely criticized the trial judge and overturned his findings. Applying the Bolam and Bolitho tests (see a previous post on this), the court concluded that there was no negligence on the defendants' part.

The penultimate paragraph of the court's decision (which summarises the law on medical negligence in Singapore) reads :

"144 At the heart of the Bolam test is the recognition that judicial wisdom has its limits. A judge, unschooled and unskilled in the art of medicine, has no business adjudicating matters over which medical experts themselves cannot come to agreement. This is especially where, as in this case, the medical dispute is complex and resolvable only by long-term research and empirical observation. Furthermore, the lawyer-judge in ‘playing doctor’ at the frontiers of medical science might distort or even hamper its proper development. Excessive judicial interference raises the spectre of defensive medicine, with the attendant evils of higher medical costs and wastage of precious medical resources."

The expert witnesses for the parties were -

for Plaintiff - two neurosurgeons (Dr Prem Pillay and Dr Gopal Baratham), a radiation oncologist (Dr Tsao Shiu Ying), and a neuropathologist (Dr Jennifer Teo). The trial judge additionally called Dr Tan, the radiologist who took both MRI scans, to present herself as the plaintiff’s witness.

for the Defendants - three neurosurgeons (Prof Bengt Karlsson, Dr Ho Kee Hang, and Dr Yeo Tseng Tsai), two radiation oncologists (Dr Robert Smee and Dr Chua Eu Tiong), and a neuroradiologist (Dr Francis Hui).