Notre Dame coach claims malpractice

BOSTON -- Doctors failed to recognize life-threatening complications after Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis' gastric bypass surgery, allowing him to bleed internally for more than a day, his lawyer said Tuesday at the start of the coach's malpractice trial.\nWeis had the surgery in June 2002 while he was offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots. He weighed 350 pounds and has said he wanted a permanent solution to years of weight problems, both for his family's well-being and to improve his chances of becoming a head coach.\nWeis alleges that Massachusetts General Hospital surgeons Charles Ferguson and Richard Hodin acted negligently and left Weis so close to death that he received the Roman Catholic sacrament of last rites.\nThe doctors maintain they did nothing wrong.\nWeis had difficulty breathing in the early morning a day after his June 14 surgery, his lawyer, Michael Mone, said in an opening statement in Suffolk Superior Court. On June 16, doctors performed a much more invasive surgery to fix problems caused by the initial procedure.\n"For more than 30 hours, Mr. Weis continued to bleed," Mone said.\nFerguson performed the surgery on a Friday, then left for the weekend. Hodin was charged with caring for Ferguson's patients while the doctor was gone, and performed the follow-up surgery on a Sunday.\nWilliam J. Dailey Jr., an attorney for the doctors, told jurors the doctors acted appropriately and that Weis was believed to be in good condition the morning of the second procedure.\n"There was no carelessness," Dailey said. "Unfortunately, Mr. Weis experienced one of the complications that is known to exist."\nWeis, who is seeking unspecified damages, could testify Wednesday. He and his wife, Maura, sat in the front row Tuesday. Mone said Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who visited Weis in the hospital, also could testify this week.\nIn a gastric bypass, an egg-sized pouch in the upper stomach is created by stapling it off from the rest of the organ and then connected to the small intestine. The most dangerous complication is leakage from any of the connections. In Weis' case, the connection between the pouch and the small intestine leaked.\nMone claimed Hodin failed to conduct a diagnostic test in which the patient swallows a solution that radiologists track to find leaks. He said that, by Saturday morning, Weis was showing "classic signs" of internal bleeding.\n"He should have intervened at that point," Mone said. "He chose not to operate. It was not going to correct itself."\nBut Dailey said a CT scan of Weis on Saturday showed no evidence of a leak. He said doctors were concerned that Weis' breathing problems may have been a pulmonary embolism, in which an artery in the lung becomes blocked. The scan also ruled that out, however.