Brain Surgeons Dr. Thomas Milhorat and Dr. Paolo Bolognese at North Shore University Hospital have been suspended for roughly a month after they abandoned a patient in the operating room after she was anesthetized and prepped for brain surgery.
Milhorat, 73, and Bolognese, 48, head up North Shore’s Chiari Institute, are two of the highest paid doctors in the country. Milhorat made $7.2 million and Bolognese made $2.4 million in 2007.
Bolognese was scheduled for the surgery and was a no show. The nurses looked for him and eventually contacted Milhorat who refused to do the surgery because the patient wasn’t his.
Putting aside the sheer trauma of such negligence for a patient who prepared herself physically and mentally for the operation, anesthesia remains one of the highest risks of surgery.
The two doctors are also facing three malpractice lawsuits alleging that they used patients with the Chiari defect as “guinea pigs for research and financial gain.”
For the full story, click here.
My wife has been operated on by both Dr. Milhorat and Dr. Bolognese and they literally saved her life with their skill and knowledge so perhaps I am biased for these wonderful men but here goes…
My first question is, why did the OR staff prep a patient not knowing if the doctor was in the building and ready to perform the surgery? Things happen. What if he had been in an accident? Or a family emergency came up? Shouldn’t the OR staff have verified that Dr. Bolognese was ready and able to do the surgery before they put the patient under and prepped her?
Second, why would anyone expect Dr. Milhorat to do the surgery? This was not his patient. He wouldn’t have been familiar with any issues that needed to be taken into consideration before the operation? Did this patient have a heart condition? Were there other risk factors that had to be taken into account? How was Dr. Milhorat supposed to know how best to care for the patient?
Third, Dr. Milhorat’s salary is not that much when you consider that he is the most experienced neurosurgeon in the state (and perhaps the country) and was running one of the largest neurosurgery departments in the country. $7.2 million is less than Manny Ramirez is losing for his 50 game suspension! How many lives has a typical baseball player saved? And yet for some reason the NY Daily News thinks that it is important to keep bringing this up!
Finally, the Chiari institute does not experiment on their patients. It is true that they are doing treatments that are relatively new but 15 years ago there were virtually no treatments for Chiari. The Chiari institute is dedicated to finding the best and safest treatments for their patients. But when you are talking about complex brain and spinal surgery there are no guarantees and some patients are not going to get better. Plus I would dare the NY Daily News to find a single surgeon in the country who does not have a pending malpractice suit.
The NY Daily News should be ashamed of itself for the way it has covered this topic. Two of the finest surgeons in the country have had their reputations ruined by the one-sided stupidity of its writers. If the editors have the nerve to write a fair article my wife and I would be happy to be interviewed. But I strongly doubt that the NY Daily News has any interest beyond sensationalized headlines
Sounds a bit like stealth care:
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/04/stealth-care-for-masses.html
Unless the first doctor was in the hospital himself, he should have his license revoked. A one month suspension is a slap on the wrist. Maybe the malpractice suit will hit him a little harder. I have to agree with AY that I am not sure the second doctor should be sanctioned if it was not his patient.
The Doctor was a no show and the other apparently a partner would not operate. I agree with the second one and why was he suspended. The second Doctor had no relationship with the patient, which was prudent under the circumstances. He did not know the case and could have caused worse injuries as well and have been charged criminally with assault and battery. The first one, I would need more information before I passed a judgment. Not that doctors are high on my list to begin with.