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I think we can all agree that being a doctor can be a very stressful endeavor. The lives of your patients, as well as those of their families, in a way, depend on you doing a good job. So of course, some stress is expected. But occasionally, that stress exceeds the regular amount, leading to some pretty unacceptable mistakes. For example, in a hospital from Tennessee, a doctor performs surgery on the wrong baby.
Whoops! Wrong baby
Little Nate Melton was born on the 15th of December via C-section in a hospital from Lebanon, Tennessee. The birth was uneventful, so Jennifer Melton, Nate’s mother started her R&R soon after the baby was born.
Next day, as the mother was resting in her hospital bed, a nurse came in and took her son away, for what Jennifer assumed were routine post natal tests, like weight gain or checking the blood type. She was then instructed to go back to sleep.
At one point, the nurse brought the baby back to Jennifer and her partner and started telling them how the frenulectomy procedure (removing a piece of tissue that connects the tongue to the mouth’s floor) went without a hitch, and that the nursing issues would go away after it.
Confused, the mother the mother said that they must have gotten the wrong paperwork, and even checked to see if she had the right baby. As the nurse went to look for the right paperwork, Jennifer looked at her son’s mouth and saw that surgery had indeed been performed there.
Unavoidable lawsuit
She received a phone call a few minutes later, during which the pediatrician performing the surgery apologized for accidentally asking for the wrong child and performing the surgery on her son by mistake. He proceeded to say that little Nate would be fine, and that he didn’t cry too much during surgery.
After the mother got a malpractice lawyer to pursue the case against both the hospital and the physician (no lawsuit is currently pending, however), the hospital said that the doctor who performed the unneeded surgery is an independent physician which has privileges there, but that he is not a member of the hospital’s staff.
Meanwhile, the attorney said that in his 20 years on the job he has never before seen a case of mistaken identity during surgery. Fortunately, however, the operation was minor, and there are no chances of the baby suffering from it in the future. The mother, obviously, doesn’t see it like that, though.
Image source: Pixabay
