Baltimore nurse who was med-mal defense lawyer dies after liver

Deborah A. Krohn, a nurse who went to law school, practiced medical malpractice defense law and then returned to nursing, died last week of complications from a February liver transplant. She was 54.

"This was so sudden," said Diana Hobbs, an attorney at Snyder, Weltchek & Snyder. "She was perfectly, perfectly healthy. Up until the afternoon she died, I was just convinced that she was going to make it, even as a medical person myself."

Before she became ill, Krohn worked as a nurse in the endoscopy unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Dana M. Levitz, for whom Krohn clerked after law school, said Krohn worked as a pediatric nursing coordinator at Hopkins before receiving her degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law.

He said he believes she is the only person in state history ever to be mistakenly informed that she had failed the bar exam; she was notified two weeks later that there had been a data entry error and that she had actually passed easily. She was admitted to practice in 1992.

Missed nursing

After clerking for Levitz, Krohn did medical malpractice defense work at Mason, Ketterman & Morgan P.A. From there, she formed Siegel & Krohn P.C. with Malinda Siegel.

The firm, which lasted from 2002 to 2006, represented health care providers, Siegel said.

Krohn eventually realized that she missed nursing and returned to work at Hopkins, first part-time and then full-time.

"She got a little discouraged with the practice of law," said Siegel, who now lives in Washington state.

Law is adversarial and Krohn, by nature, was not, Siegel said. Hobbs said her friend "had more of a nurse personality than a lawyer personality."

Krohn felt that having practiced law made her a better nurse, Hobbs said.

"Doing medical malpractice [defense], we see sometimes when patients have died, we take care of the families and we see the effect that medicine has on the entire family, not just the patient," Hobbs said.

Levitz and Hobbs said Krohn lectured widely on the intersection of nursing and the law, particularly on the subject of whether nurses should be permitted to administer a powerful anesthetic called propofol, used during endoscopy.

Krohn loved going to plays, biking and baking, her friends said. Siegel said when they practiced together, Krohn would bake a cake a week.

She is survived by two brothers.

There will be a memorial service on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Ruck Towson Funeral Home, according to Levitz.

Copyright 2008 Dolan Media Newswires
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.