PARIS – Lawyers representing Stephens Memorial Hospital and two of its doctors will present their side Monday as the second week of testimony begins in a medical malpractice lawsuit in Oxford County Superior Court.

Judith Mitchell-Layton of Norway is suing the hospital, its radiologist Dr. Edwin Krajci, and her doctor at the time, Dr. Francis Kieliszak, charging that they failed to tell her she needed to be retested after a 1999 mammogram came back as inconclusive.

Mitchell-Layton later developed breast cancer, and her right breast had to be removed. Her lawyer, Martica Douglas of Portland, said her client “slipped through the cracks” and that the hospital and its doctors are now trying to cover up for its failure to make proper notification.

SMH lawyer Charles Harvey said he’ll be presenting documentation in the form of logs proving Mitchell-Layton received a letter from the mammography department, as required under the Mammography Quality Standards Act of 1992. Harvey said he also plans to show that a person from Kieliszak’s office discussed the results with Mitchell-Layton, and urged her to be retested.

Mitchell-Layton denies that she was told about the need for the retesting.

“Our position has been from the beginning that we have a first class mammography program at Stephens, and that everything was done by the book,” Harvey said in a Friday telephone interview.

In the first four days of the civil trial, the seven-member jury heard testimony from Mitchell-Layton and her mother, Esther Mitchell. The jury also heard two Bay State doctors about mammography testing standards, and the benefits of early detection of breast cancer in increasing a patient’s chances of survival.

Krajci’s lawyer, Philip Coffin, said he is planning to call a cancer expert from Chicago to testify this week, as well as Dr. Leslie Roub of Portland and Dr. James Connolly of Boston.

Harvey said this is the first time the hospital has been sued in a dispute over its mammography department, which is inspected yearly by the Food and Drug Administration.

The mammography department has been following the notification procedure for more than a decade, he said, and said the department has gotten “the highest possible score” in evaluating performance of equipment, qualification of its personnel, and the professionalism of its medical reports and audits.

“Basically, the annual audit is done to show whether or not the mammography department is catching what it should catch. We’re going to present the documentation that shows that she was notified,” Harvey said. “It’s an obvious dispute, and it’s a dispute that’s going to have to be settled by a jury.”