Thursday, March 15, 2012

Easily Avoidable Mistakes

Benjamin Houghton (a 47 year old veteran) had been complaining of pain in his left testicle. He also stated that the left testicle was shrinking. Benjamin’s doctor decided that it was best to remove the testicle so that he did not develop cancer. Before the surgery there were quite a few mistakes. There was an error on the consent form and the medical personnel didn’t mark the proper surgical site. They removed the healthy testicle by accident and left the bad testicle. Benjamin received a settlement of 200,000 dollars. 
Willie King was a 52 year old man who needed his leg amputated. The surgeons realized in the middle of the operation that they were removing the wrong leg but it was too late because the leg was already removed. The surgeon’s medical license was suspended for six months. They fined the surgeon for 10,000 dollars and the surgeon additionally paid Willie 250,000 dollars.

Donald Church was a 49 year old man who had a tumor in his abdomen. He went to the University Of Washington Medical Center in Seattle to have surgery to remove the tumor. Surgery went well except for the fact that they left a 13 inch metal retractor in his abdomen by accident. This happened four other times at this same hospital. They removed the retractor with no problems and the hospital paid Church 97,000 dollars.  

1 comment:

  1. Boy, makes you want to take a doctor AND a lawyer with you to the hospital.

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