Baptist Memorial Hospital System v. Smith

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING

CHAPA, Justice.

Appellant’s motion for rehearing is denied; our opinion of March 28, 1991 is withdrawn and this opinion is substituted therefor.

This is a medical malpractice case, which arose from an incident which occurred on June 22, 1980, in the emergency room of the Northeast Baptist Hospital, one of several health care facilities comprising the Baptist Memorial Hospital System. Evan W. Smith, Jr., then a fifty-five-year-old telephone company lineman, presented himself in the hospital’s emergency room where he sought treatment from a physician on duty for…