There’s a bad joke (at least, tasteless in the context of a real-life tragedy) that ends with the punchline “the judge tossed the case after ruling that the plaintiff didn’t have a leg to stand on.”
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well, I knew something was afoot.
eta: I got a thousand of 'em. it is my way of coping. the jokes, that is.
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A lot more than it should. Unfortunately the surgeon often doesn’t know the patient beyond a cursory interview prior to the surgery. Add the patient to a literal surgical assembly line where hospital staff, who’ve also never met the patient, are prepping and assisting, and it’s likely a simple mistake or clerical error will result in the wrong body part being removed.
On top of that add a patient who may not be able to communicate (delirious, senile, on numbing medications) and or a doctor who doesn’t listen or won’t ask prior to surgery “good morning Ms. Agnes, just to triple check: we’re operating on the left leg today, right?” and this sort of thing is inevitable.
Also, sharpies are awesome. I’ve marked myself up with sharpie before surgery (re-attach retina THIS eye).
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Back in elementary we were always fascinated with our Blue Cross payout tables. $100 for a thumb, $75 for index finger, $50 for little finger, $200 for whole hand and so on. I worried the parents of some of the more scraping-by classmates would see this as a payday.
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If only humans came with interchangeable parts, or maybe bad idea.
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Well I don’t know how much an arm goes for in Austria, but a leg isn’t that much.
Maybe costing and arm and leg, is like old people complaining that they can no longer fill up their tank for two dollars.
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I read a similar story happening in Florida in 1995 & the hospital chain Columbia/HCA.
The surgeon removed the wrong leg of a black man with diabetes When they realized their mistake they then removed the other leg.
The patient sued.
Columbia/HCA hired lawyers to investigate the patient’s lifestyle, saying he didn’t control his diabetes enough and that both legs were most likely going to have to be removed eventually anyway.
The judge trying the case had a conflict of interest (The hospital chain was Columbia/HCA, the one that Florida Senator Rick Scott ran in the 90’s, He was friends with Scott and got stock in Columbian/HCA when it went public in 1997. In 2003 the chain was fined 1.7 BILLION for Medicare fraud.)
The judge agreed with the Columbian/HCA lawyers’ argument. He said the case might be different if one leg was diseased and the other was healthy. But both legs were diseased and given the patient’s history of poor diabetes management, he wouldn’t be able to keep it healthy, so it was just a matter of time until he would have to have that one amputated too. So the judge threw the case out.
The defendant’s lawyer was furious. “But why your Honor?”
He didn’t have a leg to stand on.
/Thank you, I’ll be on the Internet all week! Like and subscribe!
(I first told a version of this joke in 1987 using Kaiser as the hospital chain. I worked up my law school student girlfriend into a lather about the evils of HMOs & corrupt lawyers. Reaching the punch line was delicious. I’m sure there was no connection when she dumped me publicly 2 weeks later. )
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Yeah. In many cases it’s going to be which needs to go first, rather than which needs to go.
My wife was in for cataract surgery a couple of weeks ago–they went with a sticker on her forehead (labeled with the correct eye) rather than a sharpie even though she was going to be awake for the surgery. (She was allowed to resume most activities the next day, a sharpie mark wouldn’t have worn off by then.)
$3000 seems like an insultingly small fine in any case but I wonder if this could be why the doctor got off so lightly; if the medical consensus was that the other leg would probably have to go anyway then the result of the error would cause less harm than (say) amputating a healthy limb from a young person who had many decades left to live.
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I’ve just spent 10 minutes trying to find the original source for this so I could post it - it popped up on my Insta feed a few days ago.
Had me chuckling for a while, and I’ve filed this technique away for future use ((hopefully not needed).
That is my thought, also. The high number of “medical error” deaths are mostly cases of the patient died now rather than next week. And note that the patient died before this case was heard–it’s possible they died from the failure to amputate the proper limb soon enough but it’s more likely their underlying health.
My sister in law was having breast cancer surgery and first a different surgeon showed up and then they wanted to do the wrong surgery on the wrong breast. If my brother hadn’t been there double checking on everything it would have been a total FUBAR.
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So how much is it per foot?
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or more appropriately, “how much per column inch”.
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I understand her remaining leg is not appealing.
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Surgeon approaches patient from the other way and sees “ON”. “Okay, gang. Let’s start on here.”
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I had to initial my knee.
Perhaps.The Austrian article says:
Due to a previous disease, both legs of the patient, who had since died, were severely impaired. Therefore, a transfemoral amputation was to be performed on the left one on May 18.
Doesn’t excuse the error, of course, but it’s not like she nilly willy removed a healthy let.
Willing to bet hat this was a severe case of diabetes and that he 82 year old was already on his last leg.
Since this happened in Austria: NIƎN
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