That's Fit

This was a horrible mistake. Doctors are human. There are many checks to try to avoid operating on the wrong side but unfortunatley, mistakes are made. Doctors are expected to be correct 100% of the time. If a baseball player gets a hit 30% of the time he gets a multimillion dollar contract. For those of you who think that doctors are getting rich on this, the reimbursement for a nephrectomy averages $990. That includes the operative procedure, follow up while in the hospital as well and 90 days follow up in the office. You have to do 75 nephrectomies a year just to pay your malpractice insurance, forget about all your other expenses. Yet people pay $2000 for a first row seat at Madison Square Garden to see the pitiful Knicks play one game! There is no excuse for this horrible error, but it is the comments on this page that makes me want to give up medicine forever. Patient's now come into the office and say they will sue me if I make a mistake. Do I want to take care of any of them? Fine, take care of yourself and when you are sick, take care of yourself and don't go to a doctor. I was watching the the History Channel on the history channel the other day about the Kennedy's. Did anyone know that Jackie had a baby 6 weeks premature in 1963 and the baby was taken to a small hospital and the baby died within a week? That was the President's child! Now if a six week premie were to die in a week, the lawyers would be jumping all over the doctors and the hospital. So keep sueing and criticizing your doctors, until they all quit and you can't get any medical care.

though n your baseball analogy, the other 70% don't die do they?

University of Tampa med center amputates wrong leg on patient. 2 months later they unplug the wrong patient from a respirator. who was the moron who did a double mastectomy to later anounce they had the wrong records from a different pt.

You say you're a doctor but you sound very bitter. It wasn't just the doctor. There was a whole team of people looking at the medical chart. This IS a lawsuit in the making!

Stop whinning and do your job........If we all quit our jobs everytime someone complained about something ....then noone would be working cuz the world is full of complainers , so just suck it up and do the best u can .

I agree. Everyone makes mistakes. But only completely careless and incompetent persons make mistakes like this, and then make a rediculous excuse to match their lack of quality system procedures. This mistake should cost the hospital administration a lawsuit more so than the doctor.

Accidents may happen, but this doctor is making rediculous excuses. We don't know his name but hopefully he's not ours.

What do you mean doctors make mistakes there should be no such thing when you are dealing with someones life.
aybe if you stop worring about which party is going to be in office and concentrate on medicine ,let the voters decide who they want in office not you.To avoid removing vthe wrong kidney or the wrong leg or hand as has been done,you check and confern check and confirm as many times as is neccessary.are you not smarter>a 5th grader?

I agree with this physician totally. I am a Family Practice Physician. I would like to know from those adding to this blog, who among them would be willing to go to school until they are 30-33 years old, and accumulate a quarter million dollars in educational debt? How many of you will work an 80 hour work week, there were no limits tot he hours when I was in school occasionally I worked 130 hours a week. How many of you are willing to take on the worry and risk that they could jeopardize someone's life with a mistake or sometimes not even a mistake being made, but a bad outcome. How many of you could continue to work after your patients die of disease, some are closer to me than my family. Speaking of money, how many of you are willing to work more hours every year or harder, faster every year to make the same income?

I understand what you are trying to say. However,we do not have to best health care in the world. Not unless you are very wealthy or can afford very good insurance. How many patients do you and your hospital treat at not charge? All of them? My husband and I have what is considered good insurance, but our deductible, co pays, and co insurance have increased to the point that we can not afford to go to the Dr., so what good is it? The Democrats are trying to change this. I guess you "love" and "cry" only with your paying patients. I know that mistakes happen. I am a nurse, and I have seen the mistakes Docs make. They usually don't like it when you tell them. My husband was in the hospital recently for A-fib. While he was still in A-fib, his Cardiologist ordered a stress test. I thought this was rather strange. Then found out later this Dr. was looking at the WRONG chart when he ordered this. How hard is it to look at a name on a chart? Later, he apoligized, but we still had a huge bill to pay. When I questioned if we should have to pay for this, the lady in the billing department LAUGHED at me. I think this is fair and just don't you. Best health care in the world, I think not.

Everyone needs to quit blaming the doctors for everything. They are human just like the rest of us and unfortunatley can make mistakes. Despite the occaisonal sensationalized mistake, we are still the most fortunate humans in the world to have the medical care we have available to us. People need to quit suing each other for EVERYTHING under the sun and learn what the word "forgive" means. I for one appreciate the sacrifices that most doctors make to do the jobs they do. Yes, there are some bad ones out there who may be in it for just the money, but most are in their professions because they love what they do and want to make a difference.

I am a critical care RN. Right on! One of the finest vascular surgeons I have ever met still gets crap from the rare family of a patient whose life he couldn't save. He gets those who have ignored their care past the point of no return. After they have neglected their own health, gone for months without feeling or adequate circulation, they expect him to do miracles. And sometimes they do- but when they show up with a ruptured aneurysm, there really isn't anything he can do. But he still gives everyone their best.

It is wrong to saw we have the best health care in the world. When millions do not have access to health care because they do not have insurance. The democtats are not going to be the failure of our health care we aer there in our current system driven by drug and medical companies making $$$$ and interfearing with Dr. patient relationships.

I know...something went wrong with me and there is some kind of cover up. The Dr.s don't want to admit to it.
I am now labeled as depressed because then its in my charts for others to see and categorize me... because of their out come. It took me 8 months to see a Dr that was on the second floor. There were only 2 floors. What was wrong for that Dr. to not take 5 to 10 min of his day and look at me? I was so sick and at mercy that I almost died. It goes deep so please as a Dr. Know there are ones out there that damage relationships and friendships because they race patients around and then don't give you the right info when needed. I am still picking myself up after 13 yrs. I was on a cane for 3 yrs...no one was getting it. Dr.s need to stay above of what is going on with their patients. I know they are protecting one another. Its deep in my soul... I was very active and had to sell our home because of my legs not being able to walk up stairs. I bang my head against the wall wondering (what happened) I will not let them convince me other and I am no fool. I sure wished I had some answers because no one is coming up with anything.
It goes deep. I wrote and article and they put it in the Library for others to read. It needs to be be said. We are human to and we are the ones to deal with this. I don't see that as being good Dr. patient relationship.

Phil,
Surgery is not a factory. I would check myself before removing anything from anyones body. Using a chart to figure out the correct kidney....What! A surgeon has a brain and hopefully common sense. There is no excuse To take out the wrong anything. WAKE UP PEOPLE THIS IS SOMEONES LIFE. If your sleeping, find a different job.

To 3-23 10:20am. I assure you sir, that your response is not what anyone wants to hear from a surgeon. To use the word 'frivilous' in your reply is an absurd use of the language. I frankly doubt if you're a doctor, however you probably have one in your family that you may be defending.

Yes doctors are only human, but they are not all humane. I can justly say this because I am a mother who has had her son die at a hospital. He went in walking, talking and laughing. He went in with symptoms of what we now know was Leukemia. He went to an Urgent Care facility three days before and they diagnosed him with Tonsillitis...he wasn't even complaining of a sore throat...go figure. Then a few days later when he wasn't feeling better...in fact he was feeling worse because the doctor at Urgent had given him a blood thinner medicine and an antibiotic...my son ended up at the ER.
He had the Petichial (not sure of the spelling, but you being a doctor should know what I am talking about) Rash at the time, but no one at the hospital bothered with it...they opted to just keep testing him for a diagnosis and in the meantime he was bleeding out. But no one bothered to treat him for that. They just let him bleed out in his gut and in his head and then they had the nerve to ask me if I knew that he had an AVM. What do I look like? I was just a loving and caring mom who thought that the doctors and hospital staff cared and had my son's best interest at heart. WRONG! I didn't even know what an AVM was at that time and if I had known, by all means, I would have told them ahead of time. Why didn't they know ahead of time...weren't they the ones that were running all kinds of scans and tests. Yes...they were the ones that should have known everything there was about his condition. But NO...try to throw the blame back on the poor parents...after all the hospital staff can't be to blame now can they!
My son went out of that hospital within a few days in a coma (with brain damage) on a stretcher to be evacuated by air to another hospital...where, I might add, the nurse in the ICU told me, "IF anyone can save your son it will be the doctors at Barrows Neurological Institute."
Well, they couldn't and didn't. He had too much brain damage caused from the previous hospital letting him bleed out in his head.
The doctor's at the new hospital did the best that they could...they did care. They had a Leukemia doctor check him out even though he was in a coma and they started him on a treatment plan immediately...the other hospital never did. They got his white blood cell count down to normal within two days and they infused him with platelets...the other hospital never did.
The Leukemia doctor gave my son a 60% chance of surviving the Leukemia. The Neurological doctor gave him 0% chance of anything resembling a normal life after all of the brain damage was assesed. He was virtually a vegetable.
How would you like to be told that your son...your only son...your baby boy (to a mom our children are always our babies) was worse off than dead? How would you like to make the decision to let your son go? How would you like to lose your child in the blink of an eye? How would you feel about the doctors and nurses when you feel that they failed your child and they failed you? How would you feel when your whole world comes to a crashing halt and will never be the same again?! How would you feel? I hate doctors...I hate nurses...I hate the whole world! Am I bitter...YES! Will I live...unfortunately...yes. My son went to Urgent care on June 9 and by June 21st my life as I knew it had ended.
My son died one year and 9 months ago
at the age of 23.