Judge Shalonda Jones-Parker, Clayton County State Court (Courtesy photo)

After more than a week of testimony, closing arguments are set for Thursday morning in the Clayton County medical malpractice trial involving a baby who lost a portion of his penis during a botched circumcision in 2013.

The boy, now 5, made a brief appearance as the trial opened, but much of the testimony focused on the actions of the owner and staff of Life Cycle OB/GYN and Pediatrics in Riverdale during and after the incident, as well as the lasting impact to the child.

The baby was 18 days old when his mother, Stacie Willis, took him to Life Cycle for a circumcision. A nurse midwife, Melissa Jones, performed the procedure using a special clamp designed for the procedure.

The newborn was bleeding profusely after the procedure, and Jones summoned pediatrician Brian Register, who advised using pressure and silver nitrate sticks to stop the blood.

After consulting with the clinic's owner, Anne Sigouin, Register called Willis' treating pediatrician, Abigail Kamishlian and told her that the glans—the rounded tip of the penis—“had been severed during circumcision.”

But Jones told Willis a certain amount of bleeding was normal and said to take him to see Kamishlian the next day.

The bleeding continued, and that night Willis took her son to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, where she learned a portion of the boy's penis was amputated and could not be restored.

Unbeknownst to Willis, the severed piece of penile tissue was stored in a refrigerator, but there was never any attempt to reattach it. It was discarded several weeks later.

Willis sued Life Cycle, Jones, Sigouin and Register, as well as Kamishlian and her practice, Daffodil Pediatric and Family Medical Services, in Clayton County State Court in 2014.

In June, Judge Shalonda Jones-Parker struck the defenses of Jones, Register and his practice as a sanction for destroying the tissue, ruling they had “deliberately acted to keep the plaintiff from seeing the severed tissue sliced from the penis of her 18-day-old infant initially by failing to inform her altogether and then by destroying the tissue upon learning of the pending lawsuit against them and their employer.”

Sigouin and Life Cycle Pediatrics were not sanctioned.

The trial involves more than a dozen lawyers between all the parties:

Willis is represented by a cadre of Pope McGlamry lawyers including C. Neal Pope, Jay Hirsch, Michael Blakely Jr., Kimberly Johnson, Courtney Engelke and Caroline McGlamry and Atlanta solo Jonathan Johnson.

Jones and Register are represented by Hall Booth Smith partner Terrell Benton III and associate Erin Coia; Sigouin and Life Cycle Pediatrics are represented by Huff, Powell & Bailey partners R. Page Powell Jr. and Michael Frankson; and Kamishlian and Daffodil Pediatrics are represented by Peters & Monyak partner Robert Monyak and associate Austin Ellis.