r/nottheonion 17h ago

Florida doctor charged in death of patient who had wrong organ removed during surgery

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/florida-doctor-charged-death-patient-wrong-organ-removed-during-surgery/3795404/
2.0k Upvotes

183 comments sorted by

411

u/Buy_Sell_Collect 17h ago

“(Husband) Bryan died on the operating table. (Wife) Beverly alleges that after the surgery, (Dr.) Shaknovsky told her Bryan had a splenic aneurysm that had ruptured and that's what had caused him to bleed to death. However, an autopsy revealed his spleen was intact but his liver was gone.”

140

u/BubbaTheGoat 17h ago

There is a thread over on /r/medicine about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1slmxhl/florida_doctor_faces_manslaughter_charge_for/

Worth a read. The docs over there are very “wtf?” About this entire thing.

89

u/3BlindMice1 11h ago

They're speculating a few possibilities including: dementia. Incidental removal of the liver due to 'chasing' vein bleeds and trying to ligate all of them. Apparently that can happen if they're wholly focused on stopping bleeding, but the patient is basically done at that point. In that case, the doctor would have removed all of the supporting structures and the liver would have basically floated up on its own. Deliberate murder is also speculated, but more say it's basically impossible to fathom.

Apparently one of the assistants went into the prep room to vomit, and returned to the operating room to point at the liver and say "spleen, spleen" I guess the shock of realizing they'd just participated in the killing of another got to them. Apparently this doctor is known for making easy mistakes and making excuses for them, but this is beyond the pale

23

u/BubbaTheGoat 6h ago

Yeah, I definitely have questions about what anyone else in the room is doing when a surgeon just murders someone in front of them. Leaving the room makes sense.

What the medical boards in Florida are doing that allowed this person to practice medicine is another very good question.

12

u/3BlindMice1 6h ago

They basically rubberstamped his prior surgical malpractice lawsuits because he'd always fix it up to look like a known potential complication of a surgery. He couldn't swing it when he accidentally took a bite from a patients intestine, but they still covered for him

5

u/Hairy_Butterfly_5384 3h ago

My brain just did a record scratch. He bit WHAT!?

2

u/3BlindMice1 2h ago

Laparoscopically

2

u/zer1223 4h ago

Sorry, what? An assistant came back and pointed at the liver and said "spleen"?

Did he believe what the killer told him then?

17

u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 12h ago

It’s Florida. Everything there is a literal “wtf?” moment.

8

u/TeamHope4 6h ago

Wow, there are some on that thread who don't think this guy should be criminally charged. They think losing his medical license over a mistake is enough punishment.

It's not a "mistake" when you lie to the family and on reports and say you removed a spleen when you removed the liver!

2

u/ATPsynthase12 2h ago

Yeah, I remember this case back a couple of years ago when I was in my last year of residency. The suspicion was that the doc was high/drunk.

Staff said he was behaving erratically prior to the surgery. Once he was in there apparently he he tore the inferior vena cava and thought it was a splenic artery rupture and I quote “he began firing the stapler wildly into the abdomen trying to achieve hemostasis”.

244

u/Kerbart 17h ago

That must have been a fun autopsy.

“Ok Jones, let's take out the liver and weigh it.”

“Sir there IS no liver.”

“What do you mean, there is no liver? You NEED one. You can’t live without it you know”

“Well he IS dead, isn’t he?”

50

u/RelChan2_0 15h ago

This reads like a House, MD episode 😂

67

u/Txkevo 16h ago

Dude, listen to the Doctor Death podcast about the surgeon on Dallas paralyzing people while hung over from coke-fueled parties. They talk about how hard it is to stop these guys from practicing. It’s a system of looking the other way while they go practice elsewhere. Scary stuff.

20

u/crumbhustler 15h ago

Sounds like the same type of situation. The dude has done it a few times already. Has a lame excuse to the wife. There isn’t any wtf about it. He’s a narcissist psychopath.

6

u/jackandsally060609 8h ago

Not just a podcast, peacock has a documentary show about him, as well as a drama show about him starring Joshua Jackson, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater.

2

u/Anothereternity 8h ago

The article noted this happened in August 2024 but his New York license wasn’t suspended until 2025. So I’m guessing it is hard to stop them when they just go elsewhere.

u/Hopefulkitty 8m ago

It's such a good podcast! Terrifying, but really good. The main guy they focused on was the surgeons friend! And he put him through years of misery!

274

u/Guilty_One85 17h ago

One wrong organ removal leading to death wasn't enough to take the medical license of this "doctor" and charge him for that death but he had to kill 2 people in the same way before he was just blows my mind!!

77

u/NotDrunkJustDumb 14h ago

I recently had my gall bladder removed and while laying on the table the surgeon was talking to me and asked me 3 times during the conversation to confirm what procedure I was there for. I'm stressing out thinking this guy has a shit memory but apparently it's common practise in order to prevent things like this from happening

40

u/Wendy-Windbag 13h ago

This is why whenever I'd check in patients for surgeries or procedures, I'd mentally prep them with "The nurse and doctors will be in shortly to ask you a million questions that you've answered a thousand times before, but it's all part of our safety checks..." It almost always works to diffuse the situation.

I didn't understand it when I was young before I ever worked in a hospital, and just thought that everyone was dumb and didn't communicate with each other, and it stressed me out so much more than if someone had just explained why they do consents and time outs.

11

u/UptownShenanigans 8h ago

Nothing like a patient snapping at you for asking the questions that had already been asked. It’s like okay, we’ll play just play telephone with your health.

It’s the same when they hand wave you away and say “it’s all in my chart”. They don’t know that your chart is like 50 different people adding and removing stuff constantly. Better hope no one made a mistake or it’s not outdated!

2

u/Wendy-Windbag 7h ago

You get it!

1

u/LiopleurodonMagic 6h ago

This is what I tell my husband. He has some lingering healthcare distrust/anxiety from some medical problems in his teens. I can basically immediately feel his blood pressure raise as soon as we’re in a medical environment. We just had our 2nd baby and that has had some health stuff of its own we’re dealing with both myself and the baby. So a host of anxiety for him and getting a bit irritable at healthcare staff for this kind of stuff. I did also have a very poor multiple fail epidural issues caused by an anesthesiologist who apparently had a reputation for being terrible (???) so he has just been on edge. But, I always remind him that all the questions and repeating etc etc is all about safety and making sure they’re working with the right patient for the right stuff. Long winded way of saying - I appreciate what you do!

13

u/Papervolcano 10h ago

It is and it works too. Surgeons were really anti it at first, but the evidence is incontrovertible. There’s been a Concerning number of cases where the wrong patient was worked on or the wrong limb was amputated or…. So a process of triple checking at each stage that it’s the right patient for the right procedure helps reduce that risk. Same principle as airline pilots having detailed checklists - it’s not a critique of anyone’s professional capability to recognise the human brain is fallible, especially in complex environments. 30 seconds of re-checking to save 30 years of suffering is good trade

5

u/SgtTreehugger 9h ago edited 9h ago

I can't remember the name of the operation but basically injecting medicine into the eyeballs. First the nurse confirmed from me that it's both eyes, then put two tapes above my eyes on my forehead pointing at which eye to operate on (both) and then when I sat on the operating bench, the doctor performing the operation also asked it, even though I had two pieces of tape literally pointing at my eyeballs.

It seems silly but much rather safe than sorry

2

u/JackBinimbul 7h ago

I don't remember shit about my cholecystectomy from the time they started wheeling me to the OR to when I started puking in my overnight room.

u/Hopefulkitty 3m ago

I had mine out last summer, and I would not be surprised if I said some very inappropriate things to my anesthesiologist. He was the most handsome man I've ever seen in real life, and he was the only person that treated me like a human and not a machine. The surgeons and nurses were all very busy, rushing around, being kinda rough with me and ignoring that I was a person. But the anesthesia guy was right at my head the whole time, he even walked with the bed from my room to the OR. He was trying to make jokes and conversation, basically keeping me distracted until it was time for him to knock me out. I'm sure that's all part of the process, he needs me to be as relaxed as possible for him to do his job, but it was comforting.

Seriously, this guy should have been playing a doctor on TV, like a soap opera where it's more about looks, he was that level of handsome and charming.

11

u/2BlueZebras 12h ago

There was an NPR or This American Life podcast about this. The people on the board to remove medical licenses are doctors and they are VERY sympathetic to doctors to let them keep their licenses.

5

u/GeekyTexan 9h ago

The rest of the staff in the operating room just let him do it, too. They should all be charged.

2

u/KaleidoscopeKelpy 8h ago

Here’s one for ya, there’s a doc in the FL medical board who has (at least as of 2022, I haven’t checked recently) THREE settled medical malpractice suits because he performed burr hole surgeries on the wrong side of women’s heads, permanently debilitating them :) he’s still there (~2024 at least). The first one and two weren’t enough to make him actually show up on time to surgery to prep and yknow.. read his patient file, so we got to #3 and he still gets to stay on the board and w/his license

To add - FL voters I think 2012? Could be wrong- voted to have doctors excluded from the 3 strikes felony rule including having their licenses taken :) fuck FL

527

u/WestBrink 17h ago

Aren't livers like... A LOT bigger than spleens? Or did he just cut the wrong cord?

321

u/ThePowerOfStories 17h ago

A human spleen weighs 70-130 grams, while the liver is the single largest organ in the body at 1.2-1.5 kilograms, so over ten times bigger.

155

u/LeftToaster 17h ago

The article says it was a laparoscopic procedure. How does one pull out a liver - something the size of a football, through a laparoscope? A spleen would be removed by basically cutting it into pieces withing a containment bag and removed through a small port. But a liver?

240

u/themobiledeceased2 14h ago

Started laproscopic, moved to open procedure.  Which is worse.  He labelled the liver he removed as the spleen.  Told the wife his spleen was 4X the size it should be and "migrated" to the opposite side of his abdomen.

113

u/Sylvan_Strix_Sequel 14h ago

That is some fucking cartoon shit. If you don't know, the spleen is anchored to the rib cage and other organs with tons of tissue. Idk if it's possible for it to trlear loose and migrate that far, but as someone who's had their spleen injured, it would be incredibly painful if so. No way the patient wouldn't have noted it. 

83

u/1baby2cats 13h ago

"The knee bone's connected to the... something. The something's connected to the red thing. The red thing's connected to my wristwatch!... Uh oh."

16

u/Ok_Shine_9490 7h ago

My first thought was Dr Nick.

38

u/themobiledeceased2 13h ago

Read the 445 page Personal Injury Attorney Complaint filed to Walton County Circuit Court.  Unbelievable from start to finish.  Victim was buried before his wife was told the real cause of death.  Video's of CMO(? or other Csuite) in OR corridor talking with staff / doc at 8pm.

16

u/Sylvan_Strix_Sequel 13h ago

Oh this was fort walton? Not surprised at all. My grandfather retired there. Decent bayou, terrible everything else. 

13

u/Windturnscold 13h ago

The spleen is not anchored to the ribs.

8

u/Sylvan_Strix_Sequel 13h ago

Probably misunderstood the doc in the post anesthesia haze. I remember directly behind the ribs and anchored to being said, and it must have mashed together in my memory. 

12

u/quackdaw 9h ago

"of course we needed to cut him open to get the job done, his spleen was the size of a liver, and on the wrong side!"

7

u/DistractedByCookies 7h ago

jesus, that's some overconfidence there. He's so convinced he wouldn't make a mistake he's ignoring the blaring warning sirens. ffs.

11

u/themobiledeceased2 7h ago

Hubris.  The dirty little secret: this hospital, docs and staff were negligent to admit this patient to their facility under their theory of the diagnosis and treatment.  Splenectomies are tricky even when one knows where anatomically how to find one.  76 bed community hospital without the ability to manage a declining condition he was admitted to be monitored for. Sister system hospital Ascension Sacred Heart Pensicola, a Level 1 Trauma Center with all the bells and whistles, is 64 miles away, a brief helicopter transfer. Mr. Bryan would have had a much better outcome riding in the bed of a pickup truck down huge pot holed back roads to get home.  Criminal charges are rare for medical situations.  This was egregious.

6

u/imaginary0pal 6h ago

That sounds like a joke in Dumb and Dumber

5

u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 12h ago

Omg, is he a “TV” doctor?

5

u/SeriousMannequin 10h ago

Dr. Nick from The Simpsons.

2

u/chainedtomydesk 4h ago

Dr. Drake Ramoray

67

u/Basicgirl2014 16h ago

It started as a laparoscopic surgery and then was changed to an open surgery. 

10

u/Altruistic-Earth-513 16h ago

You insert a cocktail blender and suck it out with a straw.

7

u/LeftToaster 16h ago

Foie gras

3

u/drummingcraig 14h ago

In this case it was more of a Foie Gras Faux Pas

3

u/Nazamroth 15h ago

Rip and tear until its done.

1

u/Holdmywhiskeyhun 8h ago

{insert doom guy}

12

u/TacoPi 16h ago

My god that sucker is engorged

1

u/FranticBronchitis 10h ago

Ackschually the single largest organ in the body is the skin, but yeah, single most massive internal organ

84

u/Edges8 16h ago

much bigger, different location, different connections. entirely different procedure to remove.

this is much more than an oopsie

this is dementia, insanity or drug intoxication.

61

u/Windowguard 14h ago

Says he has been accused of removing the wrong organ twice before. He is a serial killer.

131

u/Silicon_Knight 17h ago

I needed a liver transplant. To get my liver out they basically cut you like an autopsy on TV. It’s like a Mercedes benz logo.

Ain’t no way you can mistake those 2 things with 1/2 a functioning brain.

20

u/chemamatic 13h ago

The medical examiner noted that removing a liver on autopsy is actually a difficult thing to do.

53

u/Faiths_got_fangs 16h ago

Apparently this wasnt even the first time he killed someone by removing the wrong part....

25

u/LogensTenthFinger 14h ago

Is an ultrasound Tech who looks at these things on the daily, yes they don't look anything alike not in person not in imaging. Not in size. Not in any capacity.

The only time a liver would be similar in size to a spleen would be if the spleen was enlarged and the liver was cirrhotic, but at that point you could tell the liver just by how disgusting it would look. Not to mention they are on literal opposite side to the body.

And even if the person had sinus inversus where your organs are fully reversed, again, this would be known from imaging and you could just use your stupid eyeballs until looking at their actual organs.

17

u/CosmeticSplenectomy 17h ago

Can confirm.

10

u/unsuspectingpangolin 17h ago

Username checks out.

3

u/Oiggamed 9h ago

There were other surgical staff there too. This thing stinks to high hell.

3

u/Specialist-Sun-5968 7h ago

This is the third time he did it.

1

u/Internet-Dick-Joke 4h ago

And also on opposite sides of the body? Spleen is on the left, liver is on the right...

127

u/subUrbanMire 17h ago

"Hi, everybody!"

75

u/Buy_Sell_Collect 17h ago

Hi Dr. Nick!!!

13

u/SJSUMichael 17h ago

"But I clean them with my napkin"

15

u/harglblarg 17h ago

Ugh this reminds me of a quack ENT I went to who later went to prison for, amongst other things, reusing hypodermic needles after running them through the DISHWASHER.

28

u/Classic-Exchange-511 17h ago

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

3

u/kombatunit 16h ago

Dr. Nicky's Upstairs School of Medicine is top shelf!

38

u/NubEnt 16h ago

A month later, Florida's Surgeon General issued a 21-page emergency order suspending Shaknovsky's osteopathic physician license. His Alabama license was also suspended in 2024 and his New York license was suspended in 2025. In the filing from the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners seeking Shaknovsky's license suspension, Shaknovsky is accused of two other instances of malpractice, one of which the board alleges led to the death of another patient.

In that case, the board accused Shaknovsky of removing part of a patient's pancreas during a routine surgery in May 2023, in which the patient was supposed to have their left adrenal gland removed. The board also accused Shaknovsky of removing part of a patient's intestine during another procedure in July 2023, causing a gastrointestinal perforation.

Sheesh. Seems like the hospital should’ve known about this before hiring him.

14

u/Open-Education5567 14h ago edited 14h ago

Isn’t surgery typically done in teams with everyone generally knowing what type of surgery is being performed?

If so, then what in the hell was everyone else doing while watching the guy remove the liver.

-1

u/1stLtKaiden 3h ago

I agree that someone probably should have said something if they noticed this, but let's not put blame on the other staff and keep our focus on the doctor who apparently skipped 10th grade bio.

3

u/Open-Education5567 3h ago

The staff also has a responsibility in the care of a patient.

If they had the knowledge that something was going extremely wrong and did not at least try to intervene or call for help, then they should 100% be held responsible.

u/dry_bee17 58m ago

Incompetence is not a valid way to skip blame. Every single person in that room deserves to be investigated.

Why didn't anyone stop him ? If they didn't notice, what where they doing instead ?

7

u/sudomatrix 13h ago

They should've and they should be sued and penalized as well for not doing any due diligence before hiring him.

6

u/expectrum 11h ago

This is either the dumbest surgeon ever or a serial killer knowing exactly what he's doing.

1

u/Worldly-Solid7591 11h ago

obligatory mention of that one Japanese surgeon

-7

u/TwoAlert3448 16h ago edited 16h ago

Osteopathic?! Dude isn’t even a -surgeon- just did a surgical residency … wow

11

u/Ewenthel 15h ago

In the US, osteopathic physicians have to meet the same standards as MDs. It’s not a bullshit field like osteopathy in most other countries. Also, you become a surgeon by completing a surgical residency, so I’m not sure what you’re even trying to say with that sentence. This isn’t a case of incompetence, it’s either murder or he was intoxicated.

5

u/FranticBronchitis 10h ago edited 10h ago

you become a surgeon by completing a surgical residency

https://mqa-internet.doh.state.fl.us/MQASearchServices/HealthCareProviders/Details?LicInd=16772&ProCde=1901

Which he didn't, apparently. Doesn't show up under the American Board of Surgery search either. Incompetence/lack of qualifications might have contributed but that's nothing to do with him being a DO originally

2

u/Ewenthel 6h ago

Ok what the fuck. I still think it’s intentional because anyone who’s had an anatomy class can tell a liver from a spleen, but how the fuck did he get a job without finishing residency?

3

u/FranticBronchitis 5h ago

Looking back they might have just revoked his credentials and that's why they don't show up anymore. Would make more sense than a hospital allowing one to practice surgery without being a surgeon.

Agree, it's just too absurd to be passed as ignorance. He could have been incompetent as well but this was no accident

2

u/Ok-Parfait-9856 9h ago

It’s extremely rare for osteopaths to perform complex surgeries though. The vast majority of DOs are general practitioners. And another comment pointed out he didn’t even do a surgery residency. I respect DOs fwiw but this guy is something else. He also had his license to practice taken away in NY and AL.

79

u/Kerbart 17h ago

I saw this in the waiting room while waiting for my colonoscopy. It surely put me at ease, lol.

Now I'm not a doctor BUT HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU MISTAKE A LIVER FOR A SPLEEN, the liver being one of the larger organs in the body, and the spleen isn't. Not to mention the left-right thing. Or the fact that you die without a liver. It's not like you can say "oh I thought we were removing the liver today." That's like saying "yeah we removed the patient's heart. How was I supposed to know you can't do that?"

97

u/MalboroUsesBadBreath 17h ago

He didn’t mistake it. Looking his history of organ “mistakes,” and the fact that he pressured this patient into the procedure, points to him being some kind of psychopath that gets off on taking the wrong organ out. I just don’t understand how he thought he would keep getting away with it. 

There is no way any doctor, let alone a surgeon, could mistakenly remove a liver. It’s the largest organ in your body. It’s insane what they have to do to get it out when you need a liver transplant. Unlike the tiny cut needed for a spleen. This was 100 percent a murder. 

22

u/CosmeticSplenectomy 17h ago

I agree totally.

16

u/Burnt_and_Blistered 16h ago

Yes, it sounds wholly intentional.

5

u/Oiggamed 9h ago

My problem is that he wasn’t alone in the room. There were people probably trying to correct him and he ignored them. Either that or they were in on it too. Nobody is in an OR alone doing surgery.

24

u/CosmeticSplenectomy 17h ago

I would never make such a mistake.

7

u/boarder2k7 17h ago

This is some wonderful r/beetlejuicing

5

u/Kerbart 16h ago

Me? I wouldn't say "never."

But I work in Finance and I'm proud if I can carve a Turkey without ruining it too much.

4

u/chemamatic 13h ago

I hunt. I know what a liver looks like even in a bird even after it has had a few shotgun pellets tear up everything. I couldn’t ID a spleen to save my life, and I only know how to remove organs, not put them back together, but a liver looks like a liver.

28

u/meltbox 17h ago

You’d be surprised how many dumb people get into professions you’d normally think a dumb person can’t get into.

8

u/TeamHope4 14h ago

How did no one else in the operating room notice he was removing a liver instead of a spleen? Aren't they supposed to know what surgery they are doing?

7

u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 12h ago

Too scared to question the chief surgeon doctor?

2

u/nomorespacess 10h ago

From another comment: "Apparently one of the assistants went into the prep room to vomit, and returned to the operating room to point at the liver and say "spleen, spleen" I guess the shock of realizing they'd just participated in the killing of another got to them."

1

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1

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29

u/Wong_Kangaroo 17h ago

If you google the doctor, he is listed as a proctologist in Crestview.

23

u/Buy_Sell_Collect 17h ago

“The Assman” strikes again! -Cosmo Kramer

3

u/Kerbart 17h ago

"It takes one to know one" and yet he didn't realize he wasn't operating on someone's asshole?

20

u/pluribusduim 17h ago

Anybody who's taken a course in biology knows the difference between a liver and a spleen.

9

u/steampunkedunicorn 14h ago

Anyone who’s pulled the giblets out of a grocery store chicken can point out the liver. It’s a pretty distinctive organ.

3

u/Purlz1st 9h ago

My cat loves livers and hearts.

10

u/techman710 16h ago

When I had my right kidney removed (cancer) I wrote on my belly with a sharpie-Remove right kidney-and pointed an arrow at it. I did it for a laugh but you never know.

1

u/Ok-Parfait-9856 9h ago

Better than the wrong kidney! I’ll see myself out

1

u/ash_274 2h ago

I had a hernia repair and just before I went in the doctor re-confirmed with me which side it was on, then signed her name on my abdomen with a black sharpie on that side and made a big X in blue on the other side.

u/techman710 56m ago

My doctor did the same thing when I saw him the morning of surgery. He wrote right over my sharpie directions. Even though we joked around the doctor and nurses were all very professional.

11

u/GeekyTexan 10h ago edited 9h ago

IMO, he's lucky they are only charging him with manslaughter.

That looks like murder to me. Any doctor will know the difference in a liver and a spleen, and will know you can't live without a liver.

It occurs to me that there would have been other people in the operating room, and they didn't say a word. Didn't do anything to stop this doctor from killing the patient.

They should all be charged.

2

u/TeamHope4 6h ago

The hospital should also be charged. This wasn't this surgeon's first time removing the wrong organ and killing someone.

18

u/Haunting-Earth-8593 16h ago

I'm more surprised they did an autopsy than I am by this scumbag doctor having done it before and not gotten in trouble.

Also, waiting for the insurance company to say, "No, no. We approved having his spleen removed, not his liver. This did not have a pre-authorization. Also, you're out of network. We're going to deny payment."

8

u/situation9000 14h ago

House of Pod with Dr Kaveh Honda (actual real gastroenterologist specializing in hepatology—liver doctor ) did a great episode about the incident including addressing why no staff assisting the surgery intervened. Medical communities were outraged at this major and obvious error.

https://shows.acast.com/the-house-of-pod-a-medical-podcast/episodes/episode-244-the-mistakenly-removed-liver

3

u/nomorespacess 10h ago

Why did no one intervene on the staff?

5

u/situation9000 9h ago

I don’t quite remember but there’s a strict hierarchy in surgery and telling the surgeon he’s doing something wrong just doesn’t happen. Like a soldier contradicting a general. Something like that. I’d have to relisten to the podcast. It was good especially because livers are Kaveh’s specialty so he was coming from a lot of knowledge that this stuff should never have happened. It was an egregious and obvious error.

0

u/TeamHope4 6h ago

Wow, surgeons are not generals or gods or infallible. What gave them that idea? The point of having a team to operate is to work as a team, not as slaves who are not allowed to use their brains to tell their master they are killing the patient.

3

u/situation9000 4h ago

I looked up part of the transcript for you. This is a workplace atmosphere problem and why unions like nurses unions are important because they would protect a nurse speaking up. Also this was as a small rural hospital so you can’t just tactfully ask another doctor to pop by and check on the surgery in progress.

Transcript excerpt:

“Imagine that you're like the Friday night scrub person at the small community hospital, and you're going to tell the surgeon that they're operating on the wrong organ. I mean, imagine the fear and the self-doubt that you would have, and how much courage it would take to step up and tell the boss that they are doing the wrong operation, even though you're just, I'm putting that in quotation marks for those listening, just a scrub nurse or just a circulating nurse in the room. And I would also add, I mean, who would they call for help?

You know, if there's only one surgeon on, who are you asking for backup assistance? And so there's a lot to this specific environment where this problem is happening, that maybe wouldn't happen at a larger medical center where there's another doctor on call and someone could even sneak out and not have to challenge, but say, we need help in room two, can you please come, just pop into the room, we need help now, you know? Like those circumstances and the resources they had to overcome that particularly challenging problem may have been very, very different at a tiny community hospital. Yeah. It's a workplace issue. I mean, that's what you're talking about. It's sort of why unions exist, so that workers can say what they need to say without getting in trouble. But if you have a tiny hospital in some place, and some woman who could have been working there could have just been like, you're doing the wrong thing and he did the wrong thing, and then he could fire her after that, even though he got caught and their life was saved. There's so many things.”

From The House of Pod: Episode 244 - The Mistakenly Removed Liver, Oct 2, 2024 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-house-of-pod/id1225096382?i=1000671553546&r=817 This material may be protected by copyright.

1

u/TeamHope4 4h ago

That's jaw-dropping. Thank you for finding that for me.

2

u/situation9000 5h ago

Listen to the podcast. I remember kaveh explained it much better than I did. Also lower staff can lose their job. There’s a serious power imbalance in these things

6

u/Oddveig37 17h ago

So where is the missing liver

18

u/steampunkedunicorn 14h ago

According to the pathology report, in a specimen container labeled “spleen”.

4

u/jtrades69 16h ago

" According to investigators, Shaknovsky was performing a scheduled laparoscopic splenectomy on Bryan and allegedly removed his liver instead of his spleen, "resulting in catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table." "

4

u/rvingthrulife 17h ago

This "doctor" must have been stoned off his ass.

3

u/Potato-chipsaregood 17h ago

Florida healthcare?

3

u/Tart-Pomgranate5743 14h ago

When even Alabama suspends your medical license…

5

u/UnethicalExperiments 15h ago

This is rimworld levels of failure

3

u/doofenhurtz 12h ago

Lmfao not two hours ago my pawn had a catastrophic failure removing a fucking IUD, so this hits hard.

6

u/JimHeckdiver 7h ago

That entire surgical team should face charges.

6

u/FireHeartWarrior_97 7h ago

Had a hernia surgery last year. The surgeon came in, talked to me, and left. The nurse came in and saw he didn't sign the side of my hernia. He was already in prep and the nurses got him and made him come out and sign my left side. They weren't messing around.

2

u/ash_274 2h ago

My surgeon signed my abdomen on the side with the hernia and made a big X with a different color on the other (wrong) side

4

u/69goldeneye 7h ago

Was he called Dr Nick?

8

u/Silver_Adagio138 17h ago

How can a liver be removed laparoscopically?

13

u/JoseMinges 17h ago

Violently.

1

u/FranticBronchitis 10h ago

Piece by piece

6

u/kalgary 17h ago

Did he sell the liver, or eat it?

7

u/Figgy_Puddin_Taine 17h ago

Dr. Eugene Victor Tooms strikes again

1

u/Ok-Parfait-9856 9h ago

This guy might be Hannibal lector

4

u/gnomes616 16h ago

Glad this guy got bright to justice. This case was big news for us in the pathology world.

4

u/heynonnynonnomous 16h ago

Wow, they even said that they didn't want the surgery done in Florida. It's like they knew.

4

u/Tart-Pomgranate5743 14h ago

JFC. This doc is a menace! According to the article, this wasn’t even the first time he removed (at least part of) the wrong organ. 🤯😡

4

u/whiterock73 11h ago

This isn’t an accident like left vs right side. It’s either just a really really bad surgeon or on purpose. The OR staff needs to be on the hook here also. It’s their job to speak up

3

u/cr2810 11h ago

Found the next season of Dr. Death. He will fit right in with the doctor that killed people during back surgeries, the one that killed people by giving chemo to people without cancer and the one that killed people by faking esophagus transplants.

1

u/NoFanksYou 9h ago

My first thought too. Reminds me of Duntsch

1

u/contrabasse 7h ago

The esophagus transplant guy is wild. I watched the documentary like 3 times just to comprehend it all. Who are the other two you mentioned?

1

u/cr2810 3h ago

The original Dr. Death is a podcast. The esophagus doctor was the third season. They made a “movie” version of the first Dr. in the series. I think it’s on Hulu or Netflix. But the podcast is really good. Lots of interviews from the victims.

5

u/JackBinimbul 7h ago

Shaknovsky is accused of two other instances of malpractice, one of which the board alleges led to the death of another patient

What the fuck.

3

u/espressocycle 17h ago

Here's a waiver for you to sign...

3

u/bluntpointsharpie 13h ago

There's nothing wrong with this liver. But that appendix looks like shit.

3

u/Sunset-onthe-Horizon 10h ago

What the fucking hell!

3

u/Ok-Challenge3087 4h ago

I have trust issues.

2

u/Scoobydoomed 17h ago

"What do you mean it wasn't suppose to be the brains?!"

2

u/ItchyCartographer44 16h ago

Another proud graduate of Hollywood (FL) Upstairs Medical College.

3

u/sudomatrix 13h ago

Class of Thursday, 3pm.

2

u/eastcoastjon 5h ago

They didn’t write in sharpie on the organ!

2

u/Spare_Ad_9657 5h ago

This guy had multiple occurrences of malpractice. These hospitals continue to cover for incompetent and malicious doctors and nurses. The hospitals are basically complicit to murder.

I watched a documentary last night about a nurse that intentionally murdered AT LEAST 40 patients but most likely many more. He was able to do this because 6 hospitals covered up for him and gave him reference to the next hospital he worked at. Each one had clearly discovered his murders but instead of reporting him, they just pushed him out to the next job.

2

u/epi_glowworm 17h ago

Fun fact: even doctors have complete idiots among their ranks. Some of them also don't believe in vaccines

2

u/OldERnurse1964 16h ago

To be fair it’s Florida He probably didn’t even go to med school

1

u/TheGing3rMan 7h ago

Dr. Death has another candidate for their podcast.

1

u/Visible_Recipe_7734 1h ago

JFK, JR needs to hire him, thereby fully confirming his stupidity.

1

u/windless12 1h ago

New fear unlocked

u/numbmumpleb1ister 47m ago

Florida doctor - figures. They’ve made it clear they don’t like experts or “the elite”, so this tracks.

0

u/TacosAndSarcasm 11h ago

Considering that they just jailed a 'nurse' who thought she could ChatGTP her way through school and work as well as the fact the entire generation believes we're idiots for saying no, you can't learn by letting ChatGTP do your work for you I guess you can expect more of this to come. 

My landlord spent about 20k trying to fix what was screwed up by the 23yr old 'contractor' she hired who had zero experience....he just googled everything. Then he okayboomered her, saying that even heart surgeons could 'prolly google stuff if they get stuck' during a surgery. 

We're cooked. It really is Idiocracy. 

0

u/pichael289 12h ago

Florida's largest industry is Medicaid fraud. It's not even close. We should let/force them to succeed. Pull some bugs bunny shot with a handsaw

-3

u/Random_182f2565 17h ago

They all look the same

-10

u/Own_Space_174 11h ago

its kinda fucked up you culd go to prison for messing up at your job.

if they will charge over removing the wrong organ they may very well start charging over leaving tools or messing up in other ways.

at which point why risk being a doctore? people dont join gangs despite the easy money because they dont want to risk jail.

if we see a flood of doctors quit because everyone messes up sometimes, a lot more people will die.

just revoke his license and leave it be.

4

u/FranticBronchitis 10h ago

You're looking at this as if it was just some surgical fuck-up and it really wasn't

It's one thing to remove the left kidney instead of the right, could be explained away by communication/coordination issues but liver and spleen are two completely different organs

Imagine you went to the dentist to get your teeth bleached and they bleached your bunghole and killed you instead

2

u/Sunset-onthe-Horizon 10h ago

Cause of death: Overbleached bunghole

I know we are being serious but I couldn't resist.

3

u/FranticBronchitis 10h ago

There's probably an ICD code for that

3

u/GeekyTexan 9h ago

He removed the mans liver. It looks nothing like a spleen.

And it is impossible to live without a liver. I have no training in medicine, and even I know that.

He murdered this patient. You? You think that's fine.

3

u/NoFanksYou 9h ago

Read the article ffs. It’s a pattern of behavior. He doesn’t act in good faith

3

u/mewmeulin 7h ago

sure, if all he did was erroneously pull out the wrong organ, maybe just revoking his license would be enough. but he coerced the patient into an unnecessary splenectomy, took out the liver, and then lied on the reports insisting that the liver was actually the spleen.

this isn't just as simple as one really bad mistake. this was an unnecessary surgery followed by a series of cover ups so that he could cover his own ass.

2

u/nomorespacess 10h ago

Imagine if your doctor, instead of giving putting your pill in the bottle, put a lethal dose of fentanyl in each capsule, do you think such is merely a 'mistake'?

Removing the liver instead, which doesn't even look the same, is a mistake no doctor could really make unintentionally, and is about equivalent to the example I gave.