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From the hospital to the court

Myersville woman, a nurse, is new president of Maryland Trial Lawyers Association

Thursday, July 6, 2006

Elizabeth Jesukiewicz Frey spent the better part of a decade as a registered nurse. Then she decided she could help her patients more as a lawyer.

The recent election of Frey, a Myersville resident, as president of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association marked a couple of firsts: She is the first member of the Frederick County bar and the first registered nurse to head the approximately 1,200-member statewide organization.

Frey, a lawyer with Jack H. Olender & Associates PC of Washington, D.C., handles the firm’s catastrophic medial malpractice and personal injury cases.

‘‘My goals are the same as they were as a nurse — to be a patient advocate,” said Frey, who graduated from York (Pa.) Hospital School of Nursing in 1979. ‘‘There are a number of publications that express my frustration far more eloquently, such as ‘Wall of Silence,’” by Rosemary Gibson, and Janardan Prasad Singh.

Frey also pointed to a 1999 study by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine indicating that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die annually from medical errors at hospitals.

Frey said that trying to effect change in hospitals was frustrating when she was their employee.

‘‘As a nurse I would [try to go through proper channels] to resolve problems, only to see the problem swept under the carpet,” she said. ‘‘Hospitals don’t deal with these issues until a suit is brought against them. It seems to be the only thing that motivates them.”

While Frey has been a member of the association’s executive committee for six years and is familiar with the time commitment involved in working for the group, her predecessor, Alison D. Kohler of Dugan, Babij & Tolley LLC in Timonium, said being president ‘‘is like having a full-time volunteer job.”

Another former president, Daniel M. Clements, a partner at Salsbury, Clements, Bekman, Marder & Adkins LLC in Baltimore who headed the group in 1994, agreed.

‘‘The immediate past president when I came in kept track of his hours, and told me that he spent about 500 hours” on the association, Clements said. ‘‘My [time], I suspect, was more because it was an election year.”

Frey can expect a similar experience this election year, Clements said, adding that she’s up to the job.

‘‘She’s a high-energy individual,” he said.

Kohler said Frey’s nursing background is more significant to her career as a litigator than to what she brings to the association.

‘‘I can’t say that her being a registered nurse will be a big factor” in what she does as president, Kohler said.

‘‘But I do think it says something about Beth Frey,” she said. ‘‘People who have chosen nursing as a first career tend to be more empathetic and sympathetic to people. Certainly the fact that Beth is a former nurse is important in the organization’s actions in Annapolis. She has a real sense of medical malpractice from both a medical standpoint and legal standpoint.”

An active litigator since 1989, Frey has served on a number of the association’s committees.

‘‘I think the association is in very good hands with Beth,” Kohler said. ‘‘She’s an extremely competent medical practitioner, well-organized, and has lots of great ideas.”

Frey lives with her husband, John Frey, and her three children, Erin, Mary Kate and Jack.