Researchers find too little time to double check medications in the OR is causing rampant medication errors during surgery nationwide. Learn more here.
The Arkansas State Claims Commission awarded $2 million last week to the family of a 15-year-old young man who suffered permanent injuries after his surgical team skipped the surgical “time-out” and operated on the wrong part of his brain.
The essential “time-out” meeting, which was hospital policy and should have taken place before the first incision, would have alerted the surgeon, Badih Adada, MD, that he was supposed to operate on the right side of the patient’s brain. Instead, Dr. Adada removed parts of the left side of the brain before realizing he was operating on the wrong side.
According to court documents, a reporter with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had been invited to observe and photograph the surgery with the permission of the parents. Several hours into the surgery, Dr. Adada realized his error and had the reporter escorted out of the operating room. The surgical team repositioned the patient and began to operate on the correct side without informing the family of the medical mistake.
Dr. Adada claims he told the family immediately after the surgery that he originally started the procedure on the wrong side but that no damage was done to their son. The family told the court they did not discover a medical mistake had been made until 15 months later when an MRI revealed both sides of their son’s brain had been operated on.
The family filed a malpractice suit against the children's hospital and received a $20 million award. A judge later reduced the award to $11 million. Dr. Adada, who was also individually named in the suit, settled with the family for $1 million.
The separate $2 million award, ordered last week by the state's claims commission, must be paid by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Their staff performed the operation at the children's hospital and was found by the commission to be guilty of "fraudulently concealing the facts of the surgery."
The patient, Cody Metheny, was a special education student before the surgery. He now lives in a rehabilitation center. The $2 million is the amount his family has had to pay for his care at the center as a result of the surgical error in 2004.
To learn more, read the entire article.
Researchers find too little time to double check medications in the OR is causing rampant medication errors during surgery nationwide. Learn more here.
Tactical Medicine (TM) is a discipline that specializes in the emergency medical support and services required to support the mental and physical health and the overall safety of law enforcement and military special operations (i.e., SWAT) personnel during critical incidents and training.
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