On August 29, 2006, Betty Lyon filed an action for medical malpractice arising out of an “overwhelming post-splenectomy infection” OPSI she suffered in September 2004, 22 years after having her spleen removed.1 She alleged that none of the various doctors she saw over the five years preceding her lawsuit ever told her that asplenic patients faced the life-threatening risk of OPSI, that they never prescribed recommended vaccines to guard against infections that can lead to OPSI, and that they never advised her to take antibiotics at the first sign of a cold as is also recommended. She eventually contracted OPSI, and complications resulted in the need to amputate a significant part of both of her arms and legs. Lyon sued eight doctors and their practices whom she had seen for unrelated regular and specialized care during the five years preceding her lawsuit.2 She limited her claims of malpractice to only those acts of negligence that occurred between August 29, 2001 five years prior to the date suit was filed through September 2004 the date of her injury. The trial court dismissed three of the doctors Schramm, Barnes, and Sharon whom she had begun to see earlier than August 29, 2001 on the ground that the five-year statute of repose had run from when they first provided medical care to Lyon, regardless of whether they committed negligence thereafter. The doctors whom she had begun to see more recently than that date Modi, Wooten, Faribrother, Franklin, and Parker withdrew their motions to dismiss and remain in the suit. Lyon asserts the trial court erred because each time the three doctors examined or treated her after April 29, 2001, they again breached their duty of care. She contends the statute of repose should be construed to begin running on each occasion that the doctors failed to inform her about the risks and related preventative measures associated with not having a spleen.
On appeal, we conduct a de novo review of a trial court’s ruling on a motion to dismiss. Penny v. McBride , 282 Ga. App. 590 639 SE2d 561 2006. Our role is “to determine whether the allegations of the complaint, when construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and with all doubts resolved in the plaintiff’s favor, disclose with certainty that the plaintiff would not be entitled to relief under any state of provable facts.” Id.
