Trial set to begin in woman's suit against co-workers

BRANSON, Mo. -- When registered nurse Phyllis DeForrest knew it was time to have a colonoscopy, she went to those she could trust -- her co-workers at Skaggs Community Hospital in Branson.

Now, those co-workers are defendants in a lawsuit after DeForrest says they humiliated her during the procedure.

Since doctors found a buildup of cancer cells on her colon in 1991, DeForrest has had to have a colonoscopy every three years.

In 1997, DeForrest chose to have it done at Skaggs. Her suit against the hospital and four employees alleges that two nurses and a technician watched as a third nurse used a red permanent marker to draw a large heart on the perimeter of her buttocks and wrote the name of the doctor performing the surgery across the middle.

DeForrest's physician, Dr. Lynn Shaffer, performed the procedure with the drawing on her body and left afterward without reporting it.

DeForrest, 69, says that when she woke up one of the nurses proudly showed her a photograph of her buttocks, taken with the endoscope used to take pictures of her colon. The group showed the photo around the hospital and made jokes about DeForrest's new "tattoo," she says.

The drawing remained on her for days until it wore off.