A 59-year-old federal inmate lost his healthy kidney when a surgeon mistakenly took it out instead of the his left kidney which had tumors
According to the California Medical Board, the incident began when the federal inmate underwent surgery at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, to remove his left kidney.
However, he left the hospital with his sick kidney intact. Dr. Charles Coonan Streit, a urologist who has been licensed for 41 years, was punished for the error.
He was placed on probation for three years.
According to the Medical Board, the day of the operation, Streit relied on his memory to decide which kidney to remove because he didn’t have access to his medical records.
The paperwork Streit did have was wrong as it showed that his right kidney had cancerous tumors. CT scans showed cancer in the left kidney, but the images were left behind in the office of a doctor on the surgical team.
St. Jude Medical Center fined $100,000 for the mistake.
The Board concluded that the error could have been avoided if Streit followed standard operating protocol.
Source: WWWN
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