Brook v. St. John's Hickey Memorial Hospital

Two-year-old Terry Lynn Brook (plaintiff) needed a contrast-medium injection for a urological x-ray; radiologist Dr. Fischer (defendant) injected it into her calves rather than her buttocks as the package label instructed. Months later, Terry developed a shortened Achilles tendon requiring two surgeries. Her father sued Fischer, the hospital, and other physicians, arguing Fischer's injection-site choice went beyond common practice and amounted to a medical experiment; the trial court refused to give a requested jury instruction on medical experimentation, and the plaintiffs appealed. The court of appeals thought Fischer's choice might have been an experiment since other physicians didn't use the calf as an injection site.