Sorry your patient’s spinal surgery got in the way of your life.[sarcasm]I bet if the guy had gotten paralyzed and you explained that you had to run to the bank , he and his family would have understood [/sarcasm] :rolleyes:
Oh but it gets better.
I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say. So not only did he leave his patient with an incision in his back, he left him with a doctor who couldn’t complete the surgery.
What an idiot. I’m surprised they let an idiot like this in the medical profession.
I watched a story about it on the news this morning - the person being interviewed (who’s with the MA licensing board, I think) said that within 5 minutes, the staff in the OR there started beating the bushes for him, paging him and so on, and couldn’t find him. They then reported the situation to hospital authorities and kept the patient in as good of a condition as possible. The surgeon “left behind” wasn’t even scrubbed in, and was just the surgeon for the next case, so it’s not like he was leaving a junior surgeon there who’d been assisting in the operation, even. When he got back, the staff very professionally helped finish the procedure, and only then started in on him about his absence.
The interviewer (Matt Lauer from the Today show) expressed concern over hearing that the doctor had been checking his office repeatedly for news if his paycheck had arrived, and was concerned that the previous part of the operation was performed under less-than-ideal conditions if the doctor was that distracted over an apparent financial “emergency”.
At any rate, it’s disgraceful and horrible that he just ran off for that long without saying more than he needed a “break”, according to the interview I saw, and that he let this interfere with the operation at all. Jerk.
People like this numbhead really give the medical profession a bad name… Well, a WORSE name… Everyone ALREADY thinks that doctors are sneaky little self-important, money-grubbing, heartless vermin. Why add fuel to the fire?
I wasn’t at all suprised by this story. If it had been a nurse, and not a doctor who had done this, I would have been. I know I’ve just fallen into the Abyss of Stereotype, but that’s the way it is.
Love,
Kn(Sharpening up her scalpels for use on Dr. Dumbpants)ckers
Well, Matt, no one said your mom is an idiot, but I can tell you from personal experience there are loads of freaking idiot doctors out there. I’ve had them as doctors, I’ve dealt with them in retail and hospital pharmacy, and you hear about them on the news when things like this happen.
Just as there are idiots in all professions, there are plenty in medicine. If the above scenerio had happened to say, a financial advisor, we would not even have heard about it. A persons life isn’t in danger if they flake out. During a spinal surgery, you’d better hope your doctor has his or her shit together. Talk about a waste of education.
Hmmm…do I defend the medical profession as a whole, or do I use this opportunity to rag on surgeons? (I hate to miss one. )
Seriously, people should understand that surgeons take breaks. 14-hour surgeries are not uncommon, and there have been some problem cases in which a patient’s family saw the surgeon in the cafeteria when he was supposed to be doing the operation. Would you want your surgeon operating for that long without food, or would you rather he scrub out for 20 minutes, get a bite, and get his head together?
But taking his check to the bank? Puhleeze. And if he failed to even tell the rest of the team that he was going to be gone for that long, he doubly deserves what he gets.
matt_mcl, I believe strofsky is referring to the nightmare known as residents. I know all the nurses in my office shudder when we find out that we find out that we have a resident rotating through.
[/aside]
Dr J, everyone understands that doctors take breaks. I had an 8 1/2 hour spinal fusion done, and my surgeon took breaks. However, he had another surgeon there working on me and didn’t leave me on the table while he left the premises (with no way to contact him). Something smells very fishy/crimminal about this doc. (Unless the story is just incorrect)
Dr. J, I can totally see taking breaks to eat, to use the bathroom, even just to clear your head for a minute as long as there is not an immediate danger in stopping. If the doctor who nicked my best friend’s intestine would have not done so if he’d stopped for a minute or two, I know she would have wanted him to.
But sometimes things go too far. This is just insane.
Sorry we can’t all come out of medical school as fully-trained clinical geniuses. Sorrier still that this doctor–a private doc I assume–has seen fit to let a resident rotate with him, to try to pass on some of his knowledge and experience.
I never dreamed I could be somebody’s nightmare. Geez.
27 last night. The only sleep I got was about ten minutes in a lecture we had at 7:30 this morning. This is atypical for my program, but it explains my touchiness today.
I don’t want people to think my comments above were in defense of this guy. I was referring more to previous cases, in which people were appalled that the surgeon left the OR. This was completely wrong, and I imagine the surgeon in question will have his privileges revoked–as he should.
Um, I’m not sure if you’re saying people think that doctors fit your description, or if you think they all fit your description, so I’m not going to loose my venom onto you. I know there are poor doctors in the profession, but there are poor excuses for human beings in any profession. I don’t know what, perhaps, some doctor has inflicted on you in the past, but I am the daughter of a doctor, and I work in a hospital and know many fine human beings who happen to be doctors. Please try not to drag all them through the mud as well.
Shhhhhhh! If you make too much of a fuss, they’ll take a page from the navy and start giving overworked surgeons speed to combat fatigue – even allowing them to self-regulate their dosage, which could lead to widespread abuse of drugs amongst medi…
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