Doctors continue to double-book surgeries despite new guidelines
A few months back I warned you about the greatest hidden danger you might face during a surgical procedure.
I wasn’t talking about anesthesia or the risk of an infection, but the prospect of sharing your surgeon with three or more other patients at the same time.
Surgeons are ducking in and out of rooms faster than a maid at a cheap hotel. And people have ended up harmed – and even paralyzed – as a result.
Now a top surgeons’ group is making a lot of noise about how they’re reining in the practice once and for all.
But they’ve left a loophole the size of Texas. And it’s one you need to know about before you or someone you love goes under the knife.
It was the best-kept secret in the medical world – to patients, that is.
Everyone else involved — the nurses, anesthesiologists, hospital administrators — all knew that surgeons were double-, triple-, and even quadruple-booking surgeries.
But when Tony Meng woke up from his back surgery paralyzed, it blew the lid off the whole thing.
All the details spilled out during an ugly lawsuit, where we learned that for a full seven hours of Meng’s 11-hour procedure, his surgeon was running back and forth doing spine surgery on another patient.
Hospitals and doctors all over the country went into crisis mode. Congress even launched an investigation of 20 hospitals and found that some have been working to “actively conceal” the practice from you and everyone you know.
The problem has gotten so bad that the American College of Surgeons (ACS) just issued new guidelines that they’re promising will finally fix the issue.
Sure. The same way that a roll of duct tape will fix a giant hole in your roof.
First, the new ACS guidelines say that you need to be informed if you’re going to be sharing
your surgeon with another patient. But there are absolutely no consequences if he doesn’t tell you.
But, believe it or not, I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.
These so-called guidelines still let your surgeon operate on multiple patients and keep ducking in and out of the operating room at will.
He just has to promise he’ll be present during the “critical” or “key” parts of your surgery.
And guess who gets to decide which parts of your operation are important and which aren’t?
Your surgeon.
Have you ever heard such nonsense in your life? I bet if you asked patients like Tony Meng, they’d tell you every part of the surgery is critical.
As orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Rickert put it, all the ACS did was “defend the status quo.”
And he sure has that right.
Even the American Hospital Association is jumping in to defend multiple surgeries, calling it a “very complex issue.”
Give me a break! This is about hospitals and surgeons trying to make as much money as they can, nothing more.
The only complex part of this is how it managed to be concealed for so long.
And that’s why if you or someone you love will be undergoing a surgical procedure, it’s still vital to make sure you specifically ask the doctor if he’ll be in the operating room from the beginning to the end.
And if he won’t, find a surgeon who will.
Sources:
“Surgeons must tell patients of double-booked surgeries, new guidelines say” Jenn Abelson and Jonathan Saltzman, April 13, 2016, The Boston Globe, bostonglobe.com
“Overlapping surgeries to face US Senate inquiry” Jonathan Saltzman and Jenn Abelson, March 13, 2016, The Boston Globe, bostonglobe.com
