If surgery is a team sport, should surgeons bear sole responsibility for errors?

A Kentucky appeals court ruled that a surgeon was not responsible for a burn caused by an instrument that had been removed from an autoclave and placed on an anesthetized patient’s abdomen. According to an article in Outpatient Surgery, the surgeon was not in the room when the injury occurred and only discovered it when he was about to begin the procedure. An insufflator valve had been sterilized and was apparently still hot when an unknown hospital staff member put it down on the patient’s exposed skin. (An insufflator is a machine that is used to pump CO2 through tubing into the abdomen for laparoscopic surgery.) When the doctor saw the mild second-degree burn, he asked what happened, but “but no one in the OR claimed any knowledge or responsibility.” Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Malpractice Surgery Source Type: blogs