Testimony in the Paula Parker malpractice suit continued for a fourth day Monday as another of the woman's doctors took the stand.

Mrs. Parker, a 1976 graduate of Hickory High School in Hermitage, died nine years ago in the hospital of Sharon Regional Health System of a blood clot in her lung, caused by complications from the Caesarean-section birth of her son three weeks earlier at Washington Hospital in Washington County.

Dr. Michael Zinsser, an obstetrician/gynecologist who treated Mrs. Parker before she died, said he and other doctors had no way of knowing the woman had deep vein thrombosis. DVT is the condition that leads to the formation of blood clots in the circulatory system.

"There were no signs or symptoms that would have indicated it," he testified Monday.

Throughout the trial, witnesses have testified swelling, redness and pain in the extremities on one side of the body are symptoms of DVT. While Mrs. Parker showed swelling, it was present in both of her legs, and doctors have testified they thought it was normal swelling often associated with pregnancy.

In records introduced as evidence, the woman never reported pain in her legs until the day before she died.

According to emergency room records, she said she had been experiencing the pain off and on since the delivery of her son.

Testimony in Judge Michael Wherry's courtroom against the Washington County doctors who treated Mrs. Parker will continue today. The case is being heard in Mercer County because Mrs. Parker died here, and Sharon Regional's Home Health Agency was originally named as a defendant in the suit.

Sharon Regional has since settled the wrongful-death complaint against it for $82,000.