California IN BRIEF : SANTA ANA : Panel Hears Witness on New Year’s Baby

A UCLA Medical School obstetrics professor testified that a physician who hastened a birth so that the child would be the first baby born in 1990 was negligent. The Medical Board of California is seeking to revoke the license of Dr. Charles W. Turner Jr., who runs a birthing center at the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim. The New Year’s baby, Myra Kristine Palmer, was not harmed. But the board, which was already investigating Turner after two newborn deaths last year, began scrutinizing the case after Turner told The Times that he had used a saddleblock anesthetic and forceps to deliver the girl seconds into Jan. 1, 1990. Turner then displayed her at a Melodyland service. Dr. Jean Ricci of UCLA testified that Turner’s actions, including use of an anesthetic without a licensed anesthetist, leaving the mother unattended, and removing the minute-old infant from the delivery room all constituted an “extreme departure” from acceptable standards of medical care.