Former Dr. William Husel's defamation trial against Mount Carmel and its parent company continued into its second week on Monday when the former doctor took the stand.
A jury acquitted Husel of 14 counts of murder in the 2022 criminal trial. The former doctor accuses his former employer of defaming him during the criminal investigation. He had been accused of overprescribing medcation to his critically ill patients.
During Monday's testimony, Husel and his attorneys reviewed medical records and the last moments of many of Husel's former patients.
Husel described how he arrived at the prescription doses.
"You have to consider pain sources as one of the factors, you know, in weighing your decision to make it choose the appropriate dose," he said from the stand.
Husel said the patients who died under his care died from their underlying illnesses, and that pain medications impact all patients differently.
"It's impossible to determine how long someone's gonna die after the removal of life support," Husel said.
He described doses of 100 mg or 500 mg of medications like fentanyl. He told the jury that sometimes patients require high doses of pain medications for them to work.
"I learned that tolerance could be one of these significant factors that you have to consider when choosing a dose to make a patient comfortable. A person can develop a lot of tolerance, rather fairly quickly too," he said Monday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Mount Carmel contends they were right to fire Husel and that Husel harmed his own reputation with his prescribing habits and his choice to give up his medical license.
The civil jury trial started last week and is expected to continue for at least another week or two.
