Medical Malpractice: Challenge Accepted

[Bella Fortuna]

How on earth can this be beat?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/1 ... 90915.html

Surgeons Allegedly Left 16 Medical Items In Body Of German Cancer Patient

A hospital in Germany is being sued for medical malpractice after surgeons allegedly left more than a dozen medical odds and ends inside a cancer patient's body during a 2009 operation.

The man, identified by the Daily Mail as 74-year-old Dirk Schroeder, had reportedly undergone a "routine surgery" for prostate cancer. The operation was believed to have gone well and Schroeder was told that he had at least "another six years" to live.

"He wanted to live to see his 80th birthday," his daughter said, according to German-language news site The World.

However, post-surgery, Schroeder discovered that his wounds had healed badly. According to his family, his pain was so intense that he often could not sit.

According to German newspaper Bild, it took several weeks before the source of the pain was discovered.

When surgeons operated on Schroeder again, they were stunned to find 16 pieces of medical equipment in the man's body. This included "a needle, a six-inch roll of bandage, a six-inch long compress, several swabs and a fragment of surgical mask," writes the Daily Mail.

It reportedly took two operations to remove all the items.

Incredibly, Schroeder survived this traumatic incident -- but the septuagenarian died last year due to complications that arose from his cancer.

A battle over compensation between Schroeder's family and the hospital where he was treated has allegedly been going on since 2010.

According to medical rights activist and family lawyer Annette Corinth, who is representing Schroeder's family, the hospital first offered Schroeder about $660. The facility claims that the instruments may have found their way into Schroeder's body "post-operation," according to German publication Osnabrücker Zeitung.

The family is reportedly seeking about $127,000 in damages.

Though the fiasco with Schroeder may be one of the most horrific examples of errors doctors can make during surgery, a 2012 report by researchers at Johns Hopkins University revealed that such mistakes are more common than one might think. The study found that at least 4,000 surgical errors occur in the U.S. every year. These errors include "leaving objects inside patients, performing the wrong procedure and operating on the wrong side of the body," per HealthDay News.

[klr]

So much for Germanic efficiency. All of a sudden, horse meat in burgers doesn't seem quite so bad ...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's fun talking to a guy who had his good lung removed instead of the cancerous one.

[Blind groper]

In the course of my life, I have made all kinds of silly mistakes. Just as well I am not a surgeon.

Most of the time, doctors do quite well. Their error rate is a lot less than that of the general run of the mill worker. Of course, they get to bury their mistakes.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I seem to recall reading about a cash-strapped early/mid twentieth century Germany experimenting with oxy-acetylene mixture as a cheaper anaesthetic...These experiments were later abandoned after a series of "internal detonations".

[Jason]

These surgeons were fired and hired by Boeing.

[JimC]

The sooner we have fully computerised surgery, overseen by a competent AI, the better. No more distractions due to the size of nurse's tits...

[Svartalf]

But I want to be distracted by the nurse's tits... then again, I ain't a doctor.

[JimC]

But I want to be distracted by the nurse's tits... then again, I ain't a doctor.

Being distracted as they give you the needle is an excellent idea - the computerised surgery will retain one nurse (male or female as needed) for that very purpose...

[Clinton Huxley]

Eventually, all surgery will be done remotely via an app and only Apple approved organs will be allowed to be installed.

[FBM]

What, did they forget to bill him for all that or something?

[Bella Fortuna]

Well, as Wilde said, "To lose one medical item in a patient may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose sixteen looks like carelessness."

[Clinton Huxley]

Maybe the surgeon was anticipating having to go back in and was just leaving some tools handy

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There's a rather famous case of a surgeon from India who was working at VA hospital in Louisiana. It was discovered that he had never attended medical school. It took two years to fire him, and he kept his surgery privileges until he was actually fired.

[Bella Fortuna]

There's a rather famous case of a surgeon from India who was working at VA hospital in Louisiana. It was discovered that he had never attended medical school. It took two years to fire him, and he kept his surgery privileges until he was actually fired.

Oddly this does not surprise me...