Thomas Shaknovsky botched the surgery of William Bryan, 70, who died on the operating table

According to Shaknovksy’s deposition, after removing Bryan’s liver, the surgeon instructed a nurse to label the organ as a “spleen” – and he also identified it as a spleen in Bryan’s postoperative notes. Shaknovsky later said he had been “mentally compromised” at the time of Bryan’s death, explaining that he was “devastated, demoralized, crying over his passing, felt that I failed him”.

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 hour ago

          My dude, I run into people who wanted to have that “I’m willing to lose my job over this” fight in the hospital a few times over something that would kill me. And they were on the killing me side. And I know they were willing to take it to losing their job because they did.

    • SacralPlexus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      5 hours ago

      I’m not sure if you mean this generally before the case happened, or if you meant, did nobody try to stop him during the case?

      I think before the case, there were a lot of people who were uneasy with him because of the types of mistakes he was making, although these were generally smaller, less serious mistakes. I think there had been some scrutiny of his practice, but I don’t recall the details.

      During the case, it sounded like there was a complication with bleeding which partially obscured visibility in the operative field. The people in the room knew that the case was not going well because of the bleeding, but it wasn’t until he actually pulled the liver out of the patient that anyone realized how wrong things had gone.