Attorneys for former Mount Carmel doctor William Husel spent Thursday questioning an expert who raised questions about painkiller doses prescribed by the doctor.
Husel faces 14 counts of murder over those doses. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
After an hour of delay, the trial resumed Thursday with Dr. Wes Ely on the stand, a physician and professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University the prosecution hired as an expert witness.
"You do know that not just at Mount Carmel West, but that there is no maximum dosage with respect to fentanyl and palliative care. Is that correct?" defense attorney Diane Menashe asked Ely.
"As I said earlier, the maximum dose is what would end somebody's life, stop them from breathing. So there's not a number but yes, that's why we go low and build up slowly without jumping 10-20 times higher than previous doses."
Later in the afternoon, prosecutors asked Ely about the large doses of fentanyl and other drugs Husel ordered for his 14 patients.
"The doses these people gave would not allow them to keep living, and there's also no other reason to give those doses unless you're trying to end the life of the person," Ely said.
The trial resumes Monday. Lawyers say it could take eight weeks or more.
