Minn. surgeon needs two tries to remove appendix

[sacrament]

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duplicate, server screwy

 

[sacrament]

duplicate, server screwy
have they gotten rid of the ability to delete your own posts?!

 

[45408]

do you mean the doc was fired? is fired the same as banned?

also, would a once in a life time f-up like this end the doc's career?

No, the poster I was replying to was banned. And no, this shouldn't even come close to ending a career.

That's the biggest bunch of bull**** I've read here in a while. If it was my loved one, you bet your ass I'd be pissed about the extra pain and suffering he/she endured because of a doctor's screw-up. Are doctors perfect? No, of course not, and this shouldn't end a career or anything crazy like that, but the fact is that the doctor made a mistake that resulted in a second surgery PLUS complications for his patient. I think the patient and his/her family have every right to be pissed.

Then in turn, the surgeon should get a chance at being pissed off at the patient for having such a difficult abdomen, right? It's the patient's fault for having all those adhesions and that inflammation, right? I'm almost certain that this wasn't a virgin abdomen with clean anatomy.

 

[45408]

hi

 

[45408]

.

 

[sacrament]

Show me one media report that reported cases of sepsis or a medical screw-up inaccurately, painting them as being more frequent, significant, worrisome, or dangerous.

Uh, how about this one? Yeah, they're technically reporting what happened, but with absolutely no context whatsoever. 100% of lay people reading this are going to think the surgeon is a d-bag, with no further info at their disposal. That is not responsible reporting. When the fundamental interpretation of a story is dependent upon context, you need to supply some context. The local paper could write a different story about every single person who has ever died in my hospital and, with selective reporting, give the impression that every single one was an f-up. "25-year-old man admitted for a routine cholecystectomy, and was planning on going home the next day. Instead, he leaves the hospital in a body bag." This happened a couple weeks ago. Sounds horrible. It's also about 1% of the story, in a case where nobody, including the family, thinks that anything untoward occurred. For that matter, nowhere in that brief story about the Minnesota surgeon is there any indication that the patient even complained about this. I agree he probably did (and another article confirms it, although it doesn't appear the physician was sued thank God), but you just assume it based on the limited info you have. We know a small fraction of this story. The difference is that I realize I know a small fraction of the story and am not about to pass any judgment, whereas you seem to feel satisfied that you know exactly what is going on.
Media sensationalism is widely regarded as a serious issue in the medical community, and we even had a Grand Rounds a couple years ago devoted to this topic. The medical literature has a fair number of articles discussing this, and even Googling "sensationalism in medical reporting" turns up a couple.

 

[45408]

so nice, I posted thrice

 

[Gabby]

I love how people who know next to nothing about journalism try to pass themselves off as experts on media sensationalism.

I don't know guys, but if he was operating on my family member, I'd be pissed if he didn't get it right the first time. You've all been pissed off for far less so quit polishing that halo you've implanted on your head and admit the surgeon screwed up.

 

[sacrament]

The simple fact of the matter is that essentially every practicing physician is going to experience their share of iatrogenesis, particularly if they practice high-stakes medicine like surgery or critical care. The rate of complications from the insertion of a central venous catheter is variably reported somewhere from 5 to 15%. Some portion of these are going to be serious (pneumothorax), some are going to be potentially lethal (carotid puncture). If you're an ICU doctor, a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, etc., you're going to be putting in hundreds of central lines in your career. The odds are against you. You will experience complications, if not with the central line then with one of the other procedures you commonly perform. That's the price you pay to play. Ten years and two hundred perfect central lines later you might finally experience your first bad complication, and isn't it just going to be awesome when this is the particular story of the day that the paper decides to report on, and every lay person in town thinks you're an incompetent jackoff and a bunch of clueless sanctimonious premeds on an internet forum get all up your ass? That'll be awesome!
Think back to this when/if you become a practicing physician and see if you feel differently.
None of us saw this woman's abdomen. If you could go back in time and have ten different surgeons perform this operation, how do know that all ten of them might not have had the same outcome? Whatever he took out presumably at least had a passing resemblance to an appendix, might have fooled lots of people. Just might fool you someday. Sometimes bad **** happens.

 

[Gut Shot]

I don't know guys, but if he was operating on my family member, I'd be pissed if he didn't get it right the first time. You've all been pissed off for far less so quit polishing that halo you've implanted on your head and admit the surgeon screwed up.

The complication rate for appendectomies is as high as 18%, with wound infections and intrabdominal abscess formation (not a pretty thing) being the most common.

Accepting this data, would your suppositon be that 18% of appendectomies are "screwed up"?

 

[Just Joshin]

Man, sacrament, are you the surgeon in question or something? The issue was brought up and we're all giving our opinions. It's not like someone's hanging the surgeon by his balls. Chill out.

 

[Gabby]

The complication rate for appendectomies is as high as 18%, with wound infections and intrabdominal abscess formation (not a pretty thing) being the most common.

Accepting this data, would your suppositon be that 18% of appendectomies are "screwed up"?

The ones that are the result of a surgeon's error, yeah. Obviously, sometimes you can do everything right and the patient can still get an infection or something could still go wrong. But in this case, it was a surgeon's error that caused the need for the second operation. He made a mistake. He's human. It shouldn't affect his future career. I'm just saying that some of you act like anyone who dares to say the surgeon made a mistake is an idiot or is anti-doctors or some such nonsense. All we're saying is that it was a medical error and if it was my family member, I'd be angry about it. What's the crime in what I've said?

 

[sacrament]

When I was a kid my grandmother died of lung cancer, which was diagnosed at a very late stage after she had actually been experiencing symptoms for many months, and my family sued her physician for malpractice. (They lost, incidentally.) Regardless, it was always just assumed that the guy was incompetent, and whenever I told anybody about this I would just refer to him as a "quack" or whatever. Now that I'm seven years into medical training, I no longer know what to think. Was it malpractice? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I don't have access to the records, the chest x-ray, etc. I like to think that I would have, but I cannot claim that I would have definitely done anything differently. I don't really know the case, not from the standpoint of the physician anyway. Maybe it was a particularly unusual presentation that would have fooled a lot of docs. Yeah, when some dude gets the wrong leg amputated or they leave a Bovie in sombody's abdomen... yeah, you pretty much know everything you need to know. That's just an f-up, no questions asked. But those cases are rare compared to the vast number of poor outcomes that are simply nebulous, complicated, uncertain.

 

[Animus]

Um, I said why in my post -- the pain and suffering of a second operation and the complications that came with it. Like it or not, the doctor made a mistake that caused additional pain and suffering for this patient. No one is saying he should be fired, but don't say the family has no right to be pissed.

You should have kept reading my post both of my posts. That is not a reason to be pissed. If you are pissed at anyone for that it should be yourselves. I have explained why and you should get it by now. You cannot be mad at the doctor, he made no errors.

I am convinced you will never understand, but try for me.

 

[Gut Shot]

Whatever he took out presumably at least had a passing resemblance to an appendix, might have fooled lots of people. Just might fool you someday.

I have grossed perhaps a couple hundred appendixes (appendices?) in the past four years, from all age groups. Most of them are easily recognizable, but I have received a few specimens that were extremely inflammed, adhesed, and distorted to the point of being virtually unrecognizable. The amount of attached fat is also highly variable, with some being almost completely encased. Only upon serial sectioning could I surmise the orientation of the appendix within the fat and determine the proximal margin.

 

[Animus]

Man, sacrament, are you the surgeon in question or something? The issue was brought up and we're all giving our opinions. It's not like someone's hanging the surgeon by his balls. Chill out.

You should read my second post in this thread. The problem here is that physicians are continually held to zero mistake thresholds. It is unreasonable and a huge deal. It continues to ruin all parts of medicine, so to say it is not something worth bitching about is absurd. People need to learn the truth.

 

[sacrament]

Man, sacrament, are you the surgeon in question or something? The issue was brought up and we're all giving our opinions. It's not like someone's hanging the surgeon by his balls. Chill out.

It's just been an extremely quiet shift and I've got nothing better to do.

 

[Animus]

The ones that are the result of a surgeon's error, yeah. Obviously, sometimes you can do everything right and the patient can still get an infection or something could still go wrong. But in this case, it was a surgeon's error that caused the need for the second operation. He made a mistake. He's human. It shouldn't affect his future career. I'm just saying that some of you act like anyone who dares to say the surgeon made a mistake is an idiot or is anti-doctors or some such nonsense. All we're saying is that it was a medical error and if it was my family member, I'd be angry about it. What's the crime in what I've said?

Wrong. He made no errors, he made a mistake, big difference. Errors get you sued, the hospital found none of those.

 

[Gabby]

YYou cannot be mad at the doctor, he made no errors.

Oh, so the doctor meant to take out fat instead of the appendix? LOL

er-ror
-noun

a deviation from accuracy or correctness; a mistake

 

[Gabby]

Wrong. He made no errors, he made a mistake, big difference. Errors get you sued, the hospital found none of those.

Really? Because in the dictionary under the definition of "error," it lists "mistake" and under the definition of "mistake," it lists "error." So explain to me this "big difference."

 

[Animus]

Oh, so the doctor meant to take out fat instead of the appendix? LOL

er-ror
-noun

a deviation from accuracy or correctness; a mistake

Oh and here I thought were were talkign about medicine:

A medical error, on the other hand, is an adverse event that could be prevented given the current state of medical knowledge.

If there had been one of these the hospital could have found fault, it clearly stated they did not.

 

[Gabby]

I'm gonna go ahead and quote what you posted originally, before you edited it to say something more conducive to your claim:

Oh and here I thought were were talkign about medicine:

Medical error is an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis and/or treatment of a disease; injury; syndrome; behavior; infection or other ailment.

You wouldn't consider removing fat instead of the appendix an inaccurate treatment? You can argue the semantics here, but you're twisting yourself into a pretzel. Kind of amusing, actually.

 

[Animus]

I'm gonna go ahead and quote what you posted originally, before you edited it to say something more conducive to your claim:



You wouldn't consider removing fat instead of the appendix an inaccurate treatment? You can argue the semantics here, but you're twisting yourself into a pretzel. Kind of amusing, actually.

Only changed the quote because of the links in the definition, it's basically the same.

I admit you can also have errors without suing, my point was for someone to be angry I would think they consider legal action. And you are not going to sue unless they find a legitimate error made, which as I have said before, they did not.

 

[Gabby]

Only changed the quote because of the links in the definition, it's basically the same.

I admit you can also have errors without suing, my point was for someone to be angry I would think they consider legal action. And you are not going to sue unless they find a legitimate error made, which as I have said before, they did not.

Just because a person's angry doesn't mean they're going to sue. Do you sue every person you get pissed at?

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Just because a person's angry doesn't mean they're going to sue. Do you sue every person you get pissed at?

consider legal action =/= sue

 

[Animus]

Just because a person's angry doesn't mean they're going to sue. Do you sue every person you get pissed at?

Thanks for the hyperbole. Does not really get us anywhere. I will admit I was wrong telling you error was the incorrect word, although I think you will agree in medicine calling something an error can be a bit edgy.

As for what you were saying, if all you and medwanna meant by pissed was you are going to tell the doc he is an idiot, I am sure he is willing to accept that and move on from there. But if I got pissed over every mistake made towards me, I would have died of stress long ago.

 

[45408]

I have grossed perhaps a couple hundred appendixes (appendices?) in the past four years, from all age groups. Most of them are easily recognizable, but I have received a few specimens that were extremely inflammed, adhesed, and distorted to the point of being virtually unrecognizable. The amount of attached fat is also highly variable, with some being almost completely encased. Only upon serial sectioning could I surmise the orientation of the appendix within the fat and determine the proximal margin.

More of you need to read this part right here. This is your pathologist speaking.