Some Ohio residents might be dismayed to learn that in Florida, a surgeon removed a kidney from a woman scheduled for surgery on her back. The woman had had a car accident years earlier and had suffered from back pain ever since. The surgery was to fuse the bones in her lower back.

There were two orthopedic surgeons who were going to operate on the woman, but a third surgeon prepped her for the surgery, which is normal procedure. However, the third surgeon believed he had identified a tumor and removed it. In fact, a month later, the report came back that it was actually a pelvic kidney. Pelvic kidneys are healthy organs that did not move to their usual spot in the abdomen during the fetal stage of development. Before the woman had surgery, there were two MRIs performed that indicated that she had a pelvic kidney.

In the resulting lawsuit, the patient said that the surgeon should have looked at the MRIs and that he did not have consent to remove her kidney. The surgeon says the hospital should have informed him she had a pelvic kidney. There was a settlement of $250,000 each with the primary surgeons.

People who believe they have been the victim of medical malpractice might want to contact Columbus, Ohio, medical malpractice injury lawyers. Not every case of medical malpractice will involve actions such as wrong-site surgery, but they could have even more dire consequences. For example, if a person receives the wrong medication, it could compromise the person’s treatment or even be fatal. A successful medical malpractice suit will need to demonstrate that the patient did not receive a reasonable standard of care and that the patient was harmed by the error.

Source: Palm Beach Post, “Woman checks in for back surgery; surgeon thinks he sees cancer, removes vital organ“, John Pacenti, Nov. 1, 2018