$97,500 Awarded in Psychiatric Malpractice Suit : Courts: Dr. Roderick D. Ponath of Santa Ana treated a patient 12 years for ‘hysterical neurosis.’ An eye exam helped detect her muscle disorder.

For 12 years, Bonnie Burke’s faith in her Santa Ana psychiatrist held fast, even as her physical strength waned from a chronic muscle disorder she believed was all in her mind.

In 1978, Dr. Roderick D. Ponath had diagnosed her condition as a “hysterical neurosis” disorder. When her legs failed her, when she could not raise her arm to brush her teeth, when she found herself unable to pull up her pants up after going to the bathroom--she blamed herself, and searched her past for the repressed anger that Ponath said was destroying her life.

“When it’s an emotional thing, you feel so defeated. I felt like I had failed again,” Burke, 43, said Saturday, one day after an Orange County Superior Court jury awarded her $97,500 in a psychiatric malpractice lawsuit against Ponath.

“I would feel like, ‘There must be something in my mind somewhere that I’m not dealing with,’ ” said Burke, who is now on medication for her disease and lives a normal life with her husband in Fontana. “I got to the point where I didn’t trust my body or my mind because nothing made sense to me anymore.”

Ponath declined to comment and referred all calls to his attorney, Margaret Holm, who did not return calls for comment Saturday despite repeated attempts. But Ponath testified in court that Burke confirmed his diagnosis over the years by raising issues from her childhood that she thought could be linked to her physical weakness, said Frank Nicholas, Burke’s attorney.

Ponath began treating Burke in 1978, when she lived in Westminster. When she moved to Fontana in 1979, Burke--often too weak to make the trip to Ponath’s Westminster office--was treated mostly by phone except for two office visits in 1986. So he rarely witnessed her physical symptoms, Nicholas said.

It was only by a thin thread of circumstance that Burke found herself in another physician’s care in 1990, diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a chronic muscle weakness disorder that fluctuates, sometimes sapping so much muscle strength that patients cannot lift themselves.

Ponath had dismissed that diagnosis 12 years earlier when a neurologist at Westminster Community Hospital questioned Burke’s positive response to a test for the disease, hypothesizing that her symptoms could instead be emotionally based.

But that doctor, who referred Burke to Ponath, also wrote in Burke’s hospital records that he “was not certain” that the problem was psychosomatic.

Nicholas argued in court that Ponath, who served for a time as the medical director of the esteemed Brea Hospital Neuropsychiatric Center, had committed malpractice through his failure to test the diagnosis, or to even order the hospital records or contact the neurologist after the initial referral.

“Ponath never referred Bonnie to another psychiatrist or neurologist for a second opinion, nor did he ever consult with another doctor to confirm his diagnosis,” Nicholas wrote in legal documents. “Ponath never questioned his diagnosis, and when Bonnie asked why she was not improving, he would tell her that she was not trying hard enough, that she had to believe in him and have confidence in his therapy or else her condition would not improve.”

In a routine visit to have her eyes checked in 1990, Burke’s ophthalmologist noticed that Burke could not keep her eyelids up and asked her if she had ever been tested for myasthenia gravis, the muscle disorder, according to Burke and legal documents.

Burke told her doctor that her muscle weakness was a result of an emotional disorder, but the ophthalmologist referred her to a specialist.

She was promptly checked into the hospital, where she tested positive for the disease and was given Mestinon, which began restoring her muscle strength within 20 minutes. She now takes that medication regularly.

“It turned out to be as easy as a pill,” Burke said. “It was like a miracle.”

Burke said she and her husband put off having children because of her symptoms and the danger of birth defects from the antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication that Ponath prescribed for her.

During her 12 years of treatment under Ponath, between the ages of 27 and 39, she came to believe that the problem lay within her, and that she simply wasn’t trying hard enough to overcome her hidden anger.

Once an active youth on her high school drill team, Burke ballooned to 208 pounds and was so humiliated by her symptoms that she rarely left the house, she said. She kept detailed diaries in the hope of discovering some childhood trauma, and analyzed herself exhaustively, even questioning her preference for chocolate ice cream over vanilla.

“All I knew is that my life was falling apart and there had to be a reason. So I kind of clung to [Ponath] in the hope that I could work it out and get my life back,” Burke said. “I liked him very much. I trusted him completely.”

A previous jury deadlocked in June, 1994, on the matter of Ponath’s liability, Nicholas said. The case went to trial again last month, and Nicholas asked the jury to award a settlement of $850,000. After two days of deliberation, the jury came back in Burke’s favor, but awarded far less.

While Burke said she was disappointed in the amount, the verdict marked the end of a painful chapter for her, she said.

“It was very gratifying to hear a jury of 12 people, nine of whom went for us, say: ‘Yes, this doctor did not do the right thing,’ ” she said. “I’m not a vindictive person, but it was important. It put an end to the chapter for us. At last.”

The Burkes say that once Bonnie’s condition was properly diagnosed and she was responding well to medication, they thought it was too late to have children. But they have moved past the anger they once felt.

Burke now works nearly full time as an activities director for the elderly in Fontana, and she is going back to school in the hope of one day becoming an occupational therapist.