FOLLOW US

Although Hamm has a "history of disciplinary actions before the Alabama and Georgia Boards of Nursing" that includes failing to disclose a 2004 positive preemployment drug screen for cocaine, guilty pleas in 2013 for driving under the influence and following too closely, and obtaining prescriptions from doctors who weren't her primary doctor, the panel said Calvin Miller did not provide any evidence showing Hamm was convicted of any felony or crime that would trigger a duty to report under the statute.

Nor, the panel said, did Calvin Miller show that "Hamm displayed or that the defendants were aware that Hamm displayed" any inability to practice nursing due to the use of alcohol, drugs, narcotics or chemicals.

"Miller also argues that the defendants' failure to monitor Hamm amounts to negligence per se, but he fails to cite any statute requiring such monitoring," the panel said.

Court records show that Jerline Miller was scheduled to undergo surgery at Pain Care Center of Georgia in August 2019. Hamm was to provide anesthesia services during the procedure.

Before the surgery, the panel said Jerline Miller was given a sedative and a prophylactic antibiotic, at which point she began coughing and stated she was having difficulty breathing. According to the opinion, Hamm performed a maneuver intended to assist with obstructed breathing and a medical team began life-saving efforts before Jerline Miller was eventually transported to a hospital, where she died the following day.

Calvin Miller subsequently sued Hamm, Pain Care Center of Georgia, the physician who was intended to perform the surgery on his wife and others for negligence. That lawsuit was settled in August 2020, records show, and Calvin Miller filed the instant suit against Polk and the staffing companies that October.