Cite as 344 Ark. 627 (2001)
Background
On December 11, 1995, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Evangeline Aka was admitted for the induction of labor to the Family Practice Center, a resident-in-training program operated at JRMC by UAMS/AHEC pursuant to an "affiliation agreement." As of 10:00 p.m. on December 12, twenty-seven hours after her admission, Mrs. Aka had failed to progress in labor. Consequently, Cheryl Jones, a registered nurse in JRMC's labor and delivery department, telephoned Dr. Erma Washington at home. According to Jones, she notified Dr. Washington that although Dr. Betty Orange was listed on the patient's chart as the "consult" and the physician authorizing Mrs. Aka's induction, she believed that Dr. Orange was "on call" for Dr. Washington. She also reported that Dr. Orange had not seen the patient. In fact, Nurse Jones testified that she did not believe any attending obstetrical physician from the Family Practice Clinic had seen Mrs. Aka while Jones was tending her on the night of December 12, 1995.
According to Nurse Jones, Dr. Washington initially instructed her to prepare Mrs. Aka for a cesarean section. However, ten minutes after their first phone call, Dr. Washington called and canceled her orders for the c-section, directed the resident physicians to rupture the patient's membrane, and ordered medication. Following those instructions, first-year resident Dr. Shane Higginbotham made multiple attempts to rupture Mrs. Aka's membrane. At trial, Dr. Higginbotham acknowledged that if a patient, like Mrs. Aka, failed to progress in labor and was on Pitocin, a drug given to induce labor, the risk of needing a c-section increased. However, Dr. Higginbotham admitted that he lacked the technical skills to perform a c-section and could not have done so even had it been necessary to save Mrs. Aka and her baby. Dr. Higginbotham also related that between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m., he was the only Family Practice resident in the building working in obstetrics and that no doctor with c-section privileges was there to attend Mrs. Aka between 7:00 and 10:30 when he personally attempted to rupture her membrane.
After failing to rupture Mrs. Aka's membrane, Dr. Higginbotham called Dr. Washington who told him to call a third-year resident physician, Dr. Randy Hill, for assistance. Dr. Hill also failed in his attempts to rupture Mrs. Aka's membrane. Moreover, Mrs. Aka complained of mild dyspnea, shortness of breath, while the resident applied fundal pressure to place a fetal-scalp electrode.
