Doctor’s defense begins in OCP

In the view of a defense witness, the treatment provided by an Oconee doctor to a surgery patient amounted to good medicine, in spite of the bad outcome. Dr. Anna Lee Bouknight of Columbia was the second physician witness presented yesterday in Dr. Frank Rao’s defense. Rao is the defendant at trial this week in a case alleging medical malpractice. Plaintiff in the case is Elvis Pressley, father and personal representative of Cassie Sweenor’s estate. After undergoing surgery at Oconee Medical Center in 2009, Sweenor was placed aboard a helicopter bound for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. But her condition after takeoff prompted the flight crew to divert to a Columbia hospital. Sweenor was a patient at Palmetto Richland for three weeks, but later died in a hospice home. She was 27.