Florida surgeon charged with killing man after removing liver instead of spleen

It wasn't the first time the surgeon cut out the wrong organ.

See full article...

 

[zenparadox]

Osteopathic medicine means something different in the US, as noted at the top of the page you linked:



The upshot of it is, DOs in the US get a full MD training in addition to the Osteopathic training, and many never even use the Osteopathic practices once they graduate. It's a weird legacy thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Osteopathic_Medicine

None of that is to defend this quack, who is clearly incompetent at every discipline.

Oh wow, there you go. That makes a difference about what I posted since Im in Australia. Osteopathy is just a 4 year degree here, to be an MD as well here would be another 8 years minimum is my understanding.

 

[alex_d]

Here are the depositions from the OR team and other witnesses:
https://zarzaurlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/AHCA-Report-1.pdf
On p. 21 and onward there are mentioned other cases of bad surgery by this guy. On p. 35 an onward is his own testimony (as "Surgeon A"). He doesn't explain much. Many nurses at the hospital had concerns about his competence before the operation.

Lots of medical people were discussing the case here:

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1g6v1jg/florida_ahca_report_on_dr_thomas_shaknovsky/


His reviews on HealthGrades are hidden now due to this case, but beforehand they were mostly positive:
https://web.archive.org/web/2024090...ades.com/physician/dr-thomas-shaknovsky-g9ftd
Sounds like he usually came off as friendly and caring. He should have worked at Hallmark instead.

Medical examiner:

The liver was perfectly dissected off the diaphragm. As a forensic pathologist, that is one of the hardest things to learn to do.

Apparently he was quite skilled. As the article points out, he did this while not being able to see anything due to it being drowned in blood.

Essentially the liver was autopsied out of that man. There was no evidence of cross clamping, no sutures, no evidence of cautery.

Did he do this on purpose?

 

[billposer]

Probably should investigate the school that graduated the idiot. Sounds like he had little idea of what he was doing.

You don't really learn to do surgery in medical school. To become a surgeon he would have spent several years as a surgery resident. It is his residency that ought to be looked into to see if his education was at fault. It is, however, quite possible that he was alright when he finished his residency and deteriorated later.

 

[sjl]

I'm no doctor or even in the medical field, but you'd have to be even worse than The Simpsons' Dr. Nick to confuse a liver with a spleen.

Look, Dr Nick was smart enough that when a random individual (Lisa) in the audience yelled out the anatomical information he needed, he listened. That puts him several steps above a lot of people.

 

[Bondles_9]

Depends on the culture. In some cultures, red is good. I’d stick with words over colours; less chance of ambiguity if the words are chosen carefully.

But important to write "OTHER LEG." You wouldn't want to write "NOT THIS ONE" and then discover your robe was covering the top of your leg!

 

[MobiusPizza]

Genuine question, in a surgery is there only 1 surgeon? Flying an airplane requires 2 or more pilots for supervision and redundancy. There should be another doctor or surgeon there just checking the surgery is performed properly?

 

[TheWerewolf]

"Florida surgeon charged with killing man after removing liver instead of spleen"

Ok HOW does anyone confuse a massive bulbous purple organ on the right side of the body with a small, pinkish finger sized organ at the left end and cap of the pancreas????

Oh wait... "Florida surgeon". Got it. Nevermind.

 

[Veritas super omens]

I believe they were referring to the same doctor removing the wrong organ twice, not both patients dying.

Did the adrenal patient die? It doesn't say in the article that was the outcome.

FTA "Amid investigating the ghastly circumstances of Bryan’s death, investigators also noted that it wasn’t the first time that Shaknovsky had removed the wrong organ. In 2023, he wrongly removed a portion of a patient’s pancreas when he intended to remove the adrenal gland. He reported afterward that the adrenal gland had “migrated.”

 

[Bannerdog]

I don't understand why someone in the ER didn't find an excuse to leave, then run and find another M.D. to stop the insanity.

 

[Bannerdog]

Our "president" is running the presidency like this "surgeon" ran that surgery.

 

[Chuckstar]

When my middle child went in for cranial surgery (cranio synostosis correction), the doctors wrote “RW” on his forehead. My wife and I, worried as we were, could only ponder and joke about what the hell that could possibly mean. In the end, we settled on “Reticulated Walrus”. That was good enough for us.

Surgeons will sometimes mark their initials on the surgical site. That way they know it’s not just the right spot, but the right patient. Or if another surgeon has the same initials, they might use some mark they know no one else in the hospital uses. It could just be the initials of their favorite baseball player. Anything unique so when they see it they know they’re the one that wrote it.

 

[Chuckstar]

As a woodworker this scares me. We put the Xs on the bit we're about to cut off.

Good thing I went to a surgeon for my knee, and not a woodworker!

 

[FranzJoseph]

Might not have been any drugs or alcohol involved – maybe the doctor just really felt a need to vent his spleen on somebody that day?

Oops I know, it's not the most liveriest of jokes there. I'll go get my coat...

 

[TheBaconson]

Good thing I went to a surgeon for my knee, and not a woodworker!

But he could have made you an amazing peg leg.

 

[trannic]

I don't understand why someone in the ER didn't find an excuse to leave, then run and find another M.D. to stop the insanity.

From reading the medical report linked by several posters here the rest of the surgical team was rather busy with CPR and trying to save the victims life.

 

[dwl-sdca]

Genuine question, in a surgery is there only 1 surgeon? Flying an airplane requires 2 or more pilots for supervision and redundancy. There should be another doctor or surgeon there just checking the surgery is performed properly?

It depends on the hospital where the surgery is performed. In the USA some to many are “teaching hospitals” where most surgeries have not only the primary surgeon but also surgery residents and fellows who participate. The question remains how comfortable a resident or fellow would be with speaking out if they thought the lead surgeon was doing something inappropriate.

 

[10Nov1775]

The description of his conduct in the OR is absolutely insane. I cant even find the words for this man just rooting around and randomly cutting things instead of focusing on the patient bleeding out

Or tapping a distended blood vessel, commenting on how frightening it was for it to be so obviously under high pressure, only to then randomly puncture it with a surgical stapler? What the hell!

For anyone that has ever handled a power stapler, that's basically what we're talking about here. In fact, a lot of surgical instruments are basically higher spec construction tools. So he just punched holes in this sick person's blood vessel...and didn't ask for a clamp, anything!

The level of WTF in this one is completely unbelievable. Something mentally wrong with this guy—drug addled or brain disease or something. This is so beyond the pale for a surgeon that it is completely unbelievable.

 

[10Nov1775]

The doctor in this story clearly had some sort of mental issue that day. Whether it was drugs, a psychiatric condition, or a brain tumor, there is just no way that literally anybody with a medical license who wasn't literally out of their mind would not be able to distinguish the spleen from the liver.

1000%. Many civilians off the street could recognize a liver. No way a surgeon who could correctly diagnose a splenic abnormality can't, then, recognize what organ he is actually looking for.

Not. Possible. There is more to the story.