I must say that given the topic I am very disappointed that @puzzlegal only closed the MPSIMS thread & didn’t cornfield remove it.
Maybe she removed another much more important thread by mistake?
One critical to the survival of this board? 
I read about situations like this and the ones for Christopher Duntsch and wonder just how the system failed so egregiously in both cases. I mean, both graduated medical school, completed a residency, and achieved licensure, so how could they be so grossly incompetent?
I mean, your average vet is probably way better at surgery than either of these people.
And as a reminder, the same doctor killed a different patient in a separate incident through malpractice, and nearly killed a third.
The filing also accused Shaknovsky of two other instances of malpractice, one of which the board alleges led to the death of another patient.
In that case, the board accused Shaknovsky of removing part of a patient’s pancreas during a routine surgery in May 2023, in which the patient was supposed to have their left adrenal gland removed.
The board also accused Shaknovsky of removing part of a patient’s intestine during another procedure in July 2023, causing a gastrointestinal perforation, where a hole develops in the intestine. Shortly after the surgery, the patient was moved to the ICU and died, the filing states.
After killing one patient he was still performing surgery for another year before killing the second one.
The joke about medical students practicing surgery on cadavers is that “it saves a step”.
I wonder if he had a drug problem.
Your average Army medic veteran would probably be better at surgery than these butchers! I know that’s not what you meant, but I’m sure my veterinarian also knows the difference between a spleen and a liver, in multiple species no less.
I would be furious to find out that I was the person who didn’t get into medical school because of those dingbats.
I wonder if the people who certified him had a drug problem.
I hope Florida will investigate the hospital for negligence? Ascension Sacred Heart has hospitals in several states, and apparently do not monitor these bad sutgeries
People with drug issues often have very inconsistent behavior, and can be competent one day, perhaps the day he passed his exams, and be wildly incompetent the next day.
If he was killing patients every week, the news article would look rather different. He seems to have committed grotesque acts of incompetence from time to time.
But also, no surgeon practices alone. One has to wonder about the nurses and the anesthesiologist and the support staff who were with him in the room, and why they didn’t do anything. I feel like there are a lot of accessories to this crime.
Oh hell, I’ve dissected a few animals, and i can tell the difference between a spleen and a liver. That’s not especially obscure knowledge. Other than both being red and squishy, they don’t look all that similar.
We cross posted, but i agree. There are a lot of people at fault here.
from what I’ve read, he ordered them to label the liver as spleen, so maybe they were just obeying his orders; and nurses are not really respected for their opinions
The hospital was quick to announce that he was not employed by them, although they gave him permission to operate there. And his undergraduate degree is from Loyola University Chicago, while his medical degree is from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, part of Midwestern University. I have no idea how the training for an osteopathic doctor varies.
Never mind.
According to Wikipedia at least, there is very little difference in the US in modern days.
It was once more of an “alternative medicine” and still is in many parts of the world, but since the middle of the 20th century it has shifted to be closer to regular medicine in the US, to the point where it’s practically the same thing as an MD..
It’s going to be more of a failure in oversight than education, anyway.
I’m sure we all knew some truly stupid or incapable people who did enough to pass exams and get through school. With thousands of students going through medical school and onto their residencies each year, it’s nearly impossible to guarantee all the ones who get through the process actually know their stuff vs the ones who did just enough to pass.
Also, as a surgeon, he’s probably doing hundreds or thousands of procedures a year and most probably went ok. But like flying a plane, it’s a situation where any single such incident should be raising red flags all over the place, no matter how many successes there were before it. Once he killed a single patient through malpractice, whatever oversight mechanisms exist were clearly insufficient or not correctly applied.
Human spleens tend to be dark red-purple and sort of squishy, while livers are firmer and, well, liver-colored, i.e. brown. I’ve seen my share of both as surgical specimens and during autopsies. Splenectomies occur most commonly in response to trauma resulting in hemorrhaging, less often due to neoplasia.
A major key to differentiating the two during surgery* is similar to an important factor in real estate - location, location, location.
*a massively enlarged spleen (which wasn’t described in this case) might stray over into liver territory.
This thread is two years old, and I’m just now noticing it. I’ve had my spleen out. Now I need to call my surgeon and make sure he took the right organ out, lol.
You don’t seem very splenetic, so I think you’re okay.