In Keenan v. Plouffe, 267 Ga. 791 (482 SE2d 253) (1997, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that a physician and faculty member at MCG was not acting within the scope of his state employment when he performed surgery on a "private-pay" patient -- i.e., a patient whose treatment was funded by a third-party, private insurer. 267 Ga. at 793 (1). Specifically, the court found that the physician was not acting within the scope of his official duties because: (1) the patient was not one the physician was obligated to treat by virtue of his position as a faculty member at MCG, but was instead a private-pay patient that had employed the physician directly (id. at 793 (2)); (2) the physician's treatment of the patient was left "to his sole medical discretion" and therefore "did not call into play what might be termed 'governmental considerations,' such as the allocation of state resources for various types of medical care" (id.); (3) there was no evidence that the legislature intended to extend immunity to state-employed physicians treating private-pay patients. Id. at 795 (3). The Keenan Court, however, was careful to limit its holding on official immunity to the facts of that case, noting: Because this case involves the exercise of a medical discretion on a private-pay patient that was not controlled by the government employer or by statute, we do not consider whether immunity is appropriate for state-employed physicians who are required to treat particular patients, or who are alleged to have violated governmental, as opposed to medical, responsibilities, or whose medical discretion is controlled or impacted by governmental standards or constraints. Id. at 796 (3), n. 17.