Florida surgeon fatally removes wrong organ from patient 

I'm sorry you've had that experience, and I'm so thrilled to hear that you stood up for yourself!

@@KRSH_2 some doctors just aren't all there anymore. Maybe their conscience is finally eating at them.

Shoot! I have had instruments thrown at me by an orthopedic surgeon because I wasn’t fast enough with the C arm. Being yelled at is commonlplace in interventional cardiology and interventional radiology too! In my career standing up for myself has gotten me in more trouble a couple of times. I am retired from that now and I’m glad.

@@MsCGarnica Suicide is reportedly highest among MDs in the U.S. and of them surgeons. Not good for anyone.

​​@@MsCGarnicaor if they're burned out

Must speak up, whether patient or staff in the OR!

Great job advocating for yourself!!!

What? Dude this is scary AF!

Was info about the previous malpractice later published, or how did you come by that information?

@@lillyfair8816 this information is in the public domain and came out soon after news of the most recent mishap. I wouldn’t know how to (re)locate it. Apparently, the settlement terms were sealed. How it is even possible for a surgeon, perhaps more appropriately, a surgical team to excise the liver rather than an enlarged spleen is hard to believe, even for laparoscopic surgery where the surgeon has the best and primary view of the screen.

What??!!

That is a wonderful story!

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I wrote "this side" when i went in for a lumpectomy. They made me take it off.😮. The surgeon came and wrote on me per my husband's recollection. I don't recall that. I do recall having to thoroughly swab my nose with betadine(?) several times to reduce the chances of staph infection. That was pleasant.

@@blondeenotsomuch My surgeons always make circles around the areas they're supposed to be working on. Sorry they made you take it off! Your surgeon would have laughed, I'm sure!

You let an 84 yr. Old surgeon do surgery on you😮😮😮

😱 scary!

My daughter (as well as many of her female relatives on her paternal side) have Factor 5. Learn to be your own advocate if you possibly can. It changes so many things, medically. Wishing you the best. 💜

That tech is amazing!!!

In my medical records from a recent hospitalization the dictated document said I had a glossectomy. Interesting because I have a completely intact tongue, I believe the voice recognition software either did not recognize cholecystectomy and the dictating doctor signed the document without reading it. MAJOR ERROR!!!

@@rhoward295 And bravely speaking up

Essay MA even I would know the difference between a spleen and a liver. And why didn’t anybody yell stop because they were afraid of getting fired interfering?

They were impaired in some way. Drugs, drink, distracted.

It was a laparoscopic surgery, unless they were looking at the monitor, they may not have noticed until it was too late . Once the artery is severed before removal, it can’t be undone . There really needs to be more of a team effort in the operating room , with the body part/ area clearly marked. A pre surgery briefing with the patient and entire team , just prior to the administration of anesthesia. The protocol should be that when it comes to patient health and safety, degrees and titles don’t matter , everyone should be expected and encouraged to speak up without any fear of repercussions.

Laparoscopic? Can you please share a link to where that info came from?

THEY ARE iN 2 DIFFERENT QUADRANTS !!!!! Basic anatomy, awful!!

@@christinakelly9599 I praise you we need more people like you in the Health Industry that's for sure ❤ Nurses should be paid 3 times what they get x

And I bet nothing came of it.

I had the same experience with digoxen, when a nurse on a critical care unit. A patient in coma with tachycardia was receiving a shot every hour, with heart rate and blood pressure monitored every 15 minutes. After noticing that her heart rate was continuing to decrease, I refused to give the next shot, over the doctor’s insistence. Told him he should give it himself if he was so insistent, so he would be there when the patient arrested. He gave the shot & had to resuscitate the patient.

If the doctor was charged and convicted of murder and sued within an inch of bankruptcy it might serve as a deterrent to ego inflation in any medical treatment.

​@@sueregan2782-- Sad is all I can say . The Ol Ego .

I love the part of you still being here! God bless you Cheryl.Absolutely atrocious what these idiots did! I want to hear they are not practicing medicine and they compensated you for your pain and suffering.That was no mistake there are real mad man out there! Many healthy blessings to you 🙏 ❤ God bless you.

WTF?

That is absolutely appalling so shocking hard to fathom as should definitely not have happened. I am so sad very sorry you had to go through so much pain & suffering from such carelessness. Keep fighting on you're a real survivor like my wonderful Husband was ❤ wishing you continued better health & a long life 💐

I'm glad you're still here. Check the Statues again. They change some times. Or maybe you could file a Civil Suit for pain and suffering. Sorry, I meant Statutes.

@@robinsnester1717, Thank you!! No, no compensation; I know how truly Blessed I am just to still be alive, and must accept the positive sources for what happened. The dr. who did it had died in (I believe) 2002 or 2003. I'd LOVE for you to pray for my Darling Granddaughter Sierra who is 22 and slowly dying from HPV vaxx, she needs prayers. She got her HPV vaxx 10 years ago (even though her mother was ON RECORD stating she did not want and refused to have her daughter get HPV vaxx); immediately her health got bad that night, she was sick, had nausea, threw up more and more each day. In 10th grade she had to drop out of school, become homeschooled, even though she loved school; she was a straight A student, in all College Prep and A.P. Classes! Almost a year ago she couldn't eat anything, went for 4 months without food, only an occasional smoothie for nutrition, a small nibble here and there, and vitamins! One good thing: we have a lot of Native North American in us, and I've said for years we wouldn't be here if our bodies didn't store calories, fat etc with high efficiency with extremely slow metabolism; our ancestors were the ones who survived through some long winters or times of famine. We wondered WHY - we were SO DARNED FRUSTRATED that these Kaiser doctors kept sending her to psychiatrists; they wanted her 'evaluated' and it's happened about 12 times! She has a feeding tube from nose to intestines, but she needs the one directly into her intestines, and they keep refusing!! It happened again today, her mother argued with doctors on the phone, the head doctor of the hospital agreed to it, to put the permanent feeding tube in. Then 15 minutes later she gets a call from the head psychiatrist there, saying we need to get a lawyer, that they're trying to force HER into diagnosing this child with mental disorders, and lie and say that's why she's like this - that SHE'S FAKING FOR ATTENTION?? Psychiatrist said she'd be happy to testify, had all their emails and conversations documented! I'm really grateful my daughter is a nurse, with many connections to get this kind of info & help!! Do they just not want to pay for her surgery, are they hiding the fact that girls are getting deathly ill from HPV vaccinations, or are they just evil? Either way, THEY ARE WAITING FOR HER TO DIE, then they won't have to deal with it - that's what this psychiatrist said!! PLEASE DO NOT GET HPV VAXX FOR YOUR LOVED ONES!!!!!!!!

This is what I don't understand. There is a TEAM in the OR. Aren't they all complicit in the patient's death? Something similar happened to my Grandfather in the 1960s. He had gangrene in one leg and his good leg was amputated. They had to go back in and amputate the gangrenous leg. Both legs amputated to the hips. Needless to say he passed away within a week.

​@@maryshkamiceli8388omg...that's terrible. I'm so sorry for your family. If you read the details of this case, they were doing the surgery via laproscopy, and his spleen was so large, it had moved to the right side of his body (according to the surgeons). Maybe that was how this mistake was made. You'd think they'd have done detailed imaging, though, that could have prevented this.

​@@michelehemlokhexwhite4310now, what are the chances you can happen again to anyone of us ? I wonder who the surgeon is and how many previous surgeries he has done before ?

​@@AlexM-jd2roYes,I also wonder what his 'kill rate' is!

​@maryshkamiceli8388 I heard that a person wrote NOT THIS ONE on the good limb so that the surgeon wouldn't amputate it!

Somebody had a god complex, and took it out on you. They should be sued for enough to make them more humble.

Is it too late to sue? If so at least get a lawyer to write a complaint on your behalf. I would find another primary Dr too. I'm so sorry this happened. That Dr is a jerk and a terrible Dr.

@@jackiemontogmery125 Far too late to sue. It was 2015 or so. I tried to call lawyers, but they weren't interested in my case. Not enough physical scarring and no doctors, not my jack-ass primary or the plastics guy would talk. But I'm with a wonderful system now at least. I deeply respect all my doctors now because I stopped "settling" and got referrals to only well-respected docs

And they did this to one of their own. Imagine what they do to patients who are lower on the ‘totem pole’.

I’m only the widow of a guy who had a liver transplant and i instantly thought-what? The location,the plumbing, the shape, the texture,the size!! WTF ! (Ps the liver regenerates!)

Unfortunately that is primarily gender based I am a Make Nurse I have never been yelled at by a physician in 28 years so far. Other nurses yep but never a physician.

He should never practice medicine again. This is totally unacceptable.

Should be prosecuted

Fired? No he needs his license revoked and to serve prison time

Needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars, not a fine .

Manslaughter

My mom’s a doctor, and she told me a story that happened in her hospital when she just started practice. A wrong patient got his leg amputated. The nurse prepped a patient from the room next to the patient who needed amputation and nobody noticed. He was there for a different condition and got his healthy leg amputated.

This is protocol on skeletal related surgeries. The surgeon marked AND signed my leg!

They always mark you before the anesthetist gets to you so you can confirm what you’re having done on which side. I always hear them go through the checks with each other prior to knocking me out also.

@@paulacoyle5685 Yes, same happened for me before my knee surgery. I appreciate the extra caution.

He was high?

NEVER allow a needle to enter your body without talking with your team first. I was given "something" that left me paralyzed, which was never supposed to happen. It was supposed to be local anesthesia. I was butchered and openly abused. PTSD as a result. Nightmares haven't stopped. Could not find an atty to help because this was a world famous doktor, and the ins co protected him at all cost.

Ditto. I'm leery of veterinarians these days too.

Same here...I belong to Kaiser Permanente in California and more than two-thirds of the staff are not native English speakers...

🙏🏼💪🏽🛐💯🤝🏼!!!

This also happened a few times in FL many years ago! Idiotic mistakes were made! 1990’s I’m thinking! No one could believe it! It was all over the news up north! Wrong limbs, wrong breasts were amputated! It was horrible! Might as well flush their degrees down the toilet! Not a good sign tat all!

@@maryshkamiceli8388 there are alternative veterinarians, too! They know much more about what animals should be eating, which is not dry food! They were smarter than doctors as they used more natural remedies on farm animals back in the day! Some have even recommended to people that they might want to use a certain Med for an animal to get rid of a big problem that is usually not cured by the medical profession & it has worked! (Y some were taken off the market or not allowed a few years ago!)

I can. Actually very consistent with my experiences in the medical system unfortunately

@@BusbysChair17me too, unfortunately. It’s safer to assume they are all incompetent until proven otherwise.

Doctors are so often egomaniacs.

Surgical tech here. They Dr.s don't listen to us. Then the go to the ass kissing charge nurse and make complaints about us. I quit a medical college because of the crap.

Thank You,for Being YOU!

Indeed

jaeljade: What is the name of this hospital and in what city?

Yes please respond to that question I have the same question as I'm having issues where I live in Florida. Port St Lucie

Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar Beach, FL. They have stripped him of all privileges and scrubbed their website of all mention of him.

@@blondeenotsomuch Thank you for the update. Unfortunately, for the patient, he is dead thanks to this Dr.

We should NEVER leave a loved one alone in a hospital. They go out of their way to bill as much as they can and if they kill a patient, so what? There are more where that one came from. And they kept this surgeon’s ‘mistake’ quiet. The hospital is complicit.

Colonoscopies are not a sterile procedure fyi its not surgery. The equipment has been disinfected but they dont use sterile drapes to lay that on

​@@lanacastillo49FYI : It does not have to be surgery or even a sterile procedure to be concerned about contamination. Any item placed in the body must be free of contamination and potentially harmful organisms. Items just brought into the room should not just be casually placed on a tray with equipment set up for a procedure. Should we say it's okay if possibly contaminated items are added to our procedure tray it's all good since its not surgery😂😂😂😂

THEY are supposed to know proper sterility procedures…..the fact that patients have to be on alert like this is ridiculous considering the billions we pay for ‘healthcare’.

The equipment is not sterile. It is disinfected. The scope is going into your colon that may have some remaining feces not removed by the prep. If the colon is very dirty the procedure is aborted.

Hundreds of people died.

Go ahead and sue us...even if you win, the reward is minimal and all covered by insurance...unlike you, we are viewed as God-like creatures who never make mistakes

I don't trust Boeing either! And my sister has worked there over 25 years!

@@MsCGarnica Blame Supply Side Economics brought to us by the 1971 Powell Memo, first implemented around 1972.

@@AlexM-jd2ro whatever Alex I don't care how uou view yourself if a door falls off a jet in flight you're really a lazy POS to everyone else! Smh some ppl. God like? Ha ha

@@Kenjiro5775 and the commie govt that we have now! Wtf fjb

They're not.

Not all doctors should be doctors!

My thoughts exactly,...because if the surgeon doesn't have standards-morals-OR some type of spirituality or compassion,..then I do not trust them to do the right thing, especially when things get complicated or difficult.

He has to have been “removed” from his post.

I live here in Destin where this happened and he is not operating anywhere here right now. Any hospital he had privileges at has suspended such privileges.

@@robinc713 Florida Dept. Health website shows as of 09/06/2024 Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, License no. OS 16658 is free and clear and expires 03/31/2026 Ugh.

Is that a joke ...removed pancreas instead of adrenal gland

​@@MP-wz3buNot a joke, it is true. Was settled out of court.

Yes, that is my point

Question: Is there or do you know of “checklists” for patients? It seems someone could have a “checklist for patients “ appendicitis, tonsils, amputation, blood, transfusion,etc. I wonder if a book could be developed for patients/ consumers? ❤

​@@gwynethjones7323 We perform a "time out" before every procedure when the patient comes to the OR. All staff are expected to pay attention and participate. Identify patient against wristband, identify allergies, identify procedure and that surgical site is marked if appropriate, indicate that special equipment is available if needed, and any other pertinent information.

​@@gwynethjones7323there is a checklist of things needing to be done before the surgery and there is what we call timeout to make sure we have the right patient, right surgical site on what is being removed or operated on. The site is marked as well.

When did you hear about this Dr 💀? I live in that area, so yea Yikes…..😮

​@@teripeterson5709Google Dr. Death. I believe his name is Christopher Dunch (sp?).

I watched this story! He got away with many botched surgeries at multiple hospitals and several times he was just asked to resign and nothing was brought against him so he just applied to another hospital....Unbelievable

His name is Christopher Duntsch. His professional history is a true exercise in passing the buck and institutional silence to protect profits over patients.

It's all over the news

@@blondeenotsomuch not locally

Used to be a first class hospital, until they got bought out by a large corporation. Mass exodus of the good doctors that had been there. Can’t even maintain their communications networks. I had outpatient surgery there a few months ago and was shocked at how inept everything was running. Had to refill the paperwork I had done online, because they couldn’t access the data, then was taken care of in a hospital with only phone communications. The people were very helpful and caring and doing the best they could under the circumstances, but not a safe-feeling place. I was glad that my surgery was done under local anesthesia.

Hi! I'm so happy you are sharing your positive experience! More importantly, I am happy you have had that experience with your PCP 🙏

It’s insane that it could happen to anyone.Was the surgeon blind?

I agree with the praying for the family, but the person being operated on died. I have no way to prove this next statement because I just read it in the comments. Someone said this same Doctor was sued for another botched surgery. Not saying it is true or false. I have no way of verifying it. They also said there was a lawsuit and that it had been kept quiet. ???

YEP! ESPECIALLY us Medicaid patients!

You were just patient number three. All too common now. They don’t care about us as humans. Just as profit generators.

you'd think they'd have done imaging pre-surgery!

That was the lie he told

Same doctor tampered with someones pancreas last year

​@@giftedchild9490Does this Doctor still have his license?

They should have anticipated this with the MRI and CT scan. How the heck can you get an enlrged spleen out with a laproscope? Big rime malpractice. He needs his license revolked.

I'm sorry you had the bruise. I hope it is better now!

Only in some places.