What's your leg worth?

[Loshad]

A 43 yo surgeon in Austria amputated the wrong leg a few months ago. Socialized medicine so an apology was all that was necessary from the hospital.

"Oh, BTW, we gotta take off that other one, too."

Oh, the poor doctor got transferred and was fined $1500!!!!!!!!

 

[ccw]

A 43 yo surgeon in Austria amputated the wrong leg a few months ago. Socialized medicine so an apology was all that was necessary from the hospital.

"Oh, BTW, we gotta take off that other one, too."

Oh, the poor doctor got transferred and was fined $1500!!!!!!!!

That's horrific.

FWIW, that sounds like a problem of a large institution protecting itself, regardless of whether it's socialized or not.

The Dr. Death podcast exemplifies this. The first season goes through a doctor in the US that permanently maimed or killed close to 40 patients before he was prosecuted and ultimately sentenced to a long time in jail (forget exactly how long). Until he was prosecuted, hospitals would apologize to the patients, kick him out of their hospital, but never put anything on his permanent record so he would just get hired by the next one.

 

[TJ Carr]

A 43 yo surgeon in Austria amputated the wrong leg a few months ago. Socialized medicine so an apology was all that was necessary from the hospital.

"Oh, BTW, we gotta take off that other one, too."

Oh, the poor doctor got transferred and was fined $1500!!!!!!!!

Sounds like he’s a doctor in the VA hospital system

 

[PapaRaptor]

So far we are still the land of the free, except what my health insurance premium costs. But I have great doctors.

 

[Truck]

Wrong side surgeries happen, there are a lot of protocols in place to prevent it, and it should never happen. But it still does every now and then. That said, someone getting a leg amputated above the knee probably had problems with both the legs which may have factored into the error

 

[Mojave_Idiot]

As a SAR pilot I’m kinda medical adjacent, and this is pretty light on details to jump to conclusions.

Yeah, it’s awful, but I wonder what the whole story is.

 

[soulezoo]

I remember at Travis some 12-14 years ago, an Airman went under for a gallbladder surgery IIRC and woke up with both legs amputated.

On the bright side, the AF paid for a new pair of boots for him. Oh wait....

 

[VB!]

Several years ago I was laying in a hospital bed wearing a lot of gooped up gauze instead of skin with numerous major broken bones. I had to lie still because they couldn't cast anything due to open woulds. The kind doctors had rebuilt one leg from the knee all the way into the hip with a real long titanium rod and lots of pins. A good friend of mine came to visit me.

He asked about my leg and listened patiently while I told him. He then said, I'm a lot younger than you. When you die I'm taking your leg and trading it in for scrap.

I laughed so hard it set off some alarms and the nurses came. That hurt.

So what's my leg worth? What's scrap titanium worth?

 

[Loshad]

" it’s awful, but I wonder what the whole story is."

Obviously, just like many aviation accidents, there were contributing factors but, as my wife pointed out, with an operation like this the last thing done in the OR is to STFU and review the chart double checking the cogent details. This was clearly not done.

Almost everyone in my extended family is either a nurse, nurse practitioner, doctor, or pilot. The biggest difference is that pilots know that we're not perfect so we use check lists.

 

[Mojave_Idiot]

“In court, the surgeon said there had been a flaw in the chain of command in the operating theatre.”

I’m not arguing for the doctor or anything like that. However, if you just stop at ‘negligence’ you essentially guarantee recurrence.

Those contributing factors that you handwaved are what the NTSB and every DOD safety enterprise concerns themselves with to a very high degree, and I say that as one of those investigators.

It’s cool to be outraged and all, but I want to know what actually happened.