Medical Malpractice Today

Brain Surgeon Operates on Wrong Side of the Brain - Again!
Posted by: Neil Hillyard
August 24, 2007

"Patient dies after Operation On the Wrong Side of Head".  That was the headline on a news account on the website of tv station WCVB in Boston today.  The account reveals that a neurosurgeon in Providence, R.I. did brain surgery on the wrong side of a patient's brain.  The patient died.  While this would seem to be unbelievable, what is even more astounding is the fact that this was the second time this neurosurgeon has done this!  The hospital he did it in was Rhode Island Hospital.  This was the third wrong-side surgery error in that hospital's neurosurgery unit in six years!  See the website www.thebostonchannel.com.

How can that happen you say.  It could never happen in Denver, Colorado you say.  Wrong!  It has happened in this area.  My partner just settled a medical malpractice case involving the wrong side of a young man's head being operated on.  This doesn't come from a lack of medical training or experience.  This comes from a cavalier attitude which, from my experience as a medical malpractice attorney, leads to most medical malpractice and injury or death to patients.  Examples of medical malpractice handled by our office reflecting this attitude can be seen at our website at www.hwkslaw.com.  

All to often the physician plays the odds and the patient loses.  In the case mentioned above, the neurosureon relied upon his memory as to which side of the brain to operate on rather than checking the proper documentation.  Many times a physician is confronted with a clinical situation that could indicate a serious life threatening problem if it is one possible diagnosis or it could be something relatively benign if it another possible diagnosis.  Rather than assume the worst case scenario until the physician can rule it out, the physician assumes it is the less serious diagnosis because "most of the time" that is what this clinical picture turns out to be.  Unfortunately, the numbers game catches up to the surgeon, or more accurately the patient, and the diagnosis is the life threatening problem and is missed and the patient suffers.  It is simply a result of a cavalier attitude by the physician in making the accurate diagnosis.  In order to rule out the life threatening diagnosis the physician often needs to run a test.  Rather than run the test, the physician assumes the test would support his or her diagnosis of a less serious problem.  When physicians are confronted with this, often their response is that running these tests constitute "defensive medicine" and cause the cost of medical care to rise.

"Defensive Medicine" is exactly the kind of medicine I want practiced on me and my family!  We have the most advanced sophisticated medical facilities and techniques available in the world.  Use them!  Why should medical patients in the United States have to be subjected to medical decisions based upon the claim that a test would be "defensive medicine" rather than being based upon the goal of utilizing every available means of accurately diagnosing a medical problem?  The argument of "defensive medicine" is nothing more than a shield for trying to justify medical malpractice today.

Permalink