NYT: Surgical error – liver removed instead of spleen.

Hard to believe. Other catastrophic errors during the surgery and patient died on the operating table. You wonder how these mistakes can be made… Hit the link for the full story.

Mr. Bryan immediately began hemorrhaging and went into cardiac arrest, with blood pouring out as nurses and other medical staff members attempted to suction it. They began an emergency transfusion and tried to revive him, the report said. Dr. Shaknovsky did not ask his colleagues for a clamp or cauterizer to quell the bleeding, and instead continued to dissect Mr. Bryan’s organ “even though the abdomen was full of blood,” the state said.

He eventually removed Mr. Bryan’s liver, thinking it was his spleen. The Health Department noted in its report that, in addition to being on different sides of the abdomen, “spleens and livers are anatomically distinct, have different consistencies, and are different colors.”

After Dr. Shaknovsky removed the organ, “The staff looked at the readily identifiable liver on the table and were shocked when Dr. Shaknovsky told them that it was a spleen,” the state documents said. “One staff member felt sick to their stomach.”

In follow-up interviews with the Health Department, Dr. Shaknovsky claimed that he dissected the spleen from its surrounding tissue when an apparent aneurysm in the spleen ruptured suddenly, and caused severe bleeding — an account that conflicts with those of other witnesses in the operating room. An autopsy revealed that his liver was missing, but his spleen was intact and there was no evidence of a ruptured aneurysm.