11 Strange Things Doctors Have Actually Done
11.
Doctor On Board During a Malaysia Airlines flight from Auckland,
New Zealand, to Kuala Lumpur in early 2017, a flight attendant fell mysteriously unconscious
after struggling to breathe.
The plane’s captain took to the announcement system and asked if a doctor was on board.
Dr. Anchita Pandoh promptly rose to answer the emergency request.
According to a Facebook post composed by her husband, Dr. Anchita rushed to the front of
the plane and used mundane on-board supplies to help the crew member regain consciousness
and maintain a consistent breathing pattern.
In a moment of cinematic hopefulness, the passengers in the cabin broke into applause
when it became clear that the flight attendant’s life had been saved.
Because of her rapid response at 35 thousand feet, the aircraft did not have make an emergency
landing.
10.
“Keep your face on.”
After dental X-rays revealed an abnormal growth on the side of her face, a woman from Texas
sought an in-depth medical consultation and was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the
jaw.
Her doctors at the office of Robert B. Wells and Pathology Associates informed her that
she would live for only six more months unless she underwent surgery to remove the lower-right
quarter of her face, an operation that would still only add three more months to her life
expectancy.
Wishing to spend as much time with her family as she could, the woman chose to have the
12-hour surgery.
Three months later, her doctors called her back into their office and informed her that
a lab mistake involving her original biopsy had led to a mistaken diagnosis.
She then learned that it was likely that she never had cancer in the first place.
After going through five additional painful surgeries to correct her deformed face, she
filed a lawsuit against her former physicians and was awarded 250 thousand dollars in damages.
9.
Three Botched Brain Surgeries Three is not always a magic number.
This was especially true when surgeons at Rhode Island Hospital made incorrect incisions
in the heads of three different patients within the same year.
In the first instance, a resident physician inserted a drain into an elderly patient’s
head without properly marking the point of entry.
A few months later, a highly experienced brain surgeon operated on another elderly patient’s
brain without taking note of which side required the removal of a blood clot.
Then, the following November, as a result of a series of miscommunications, the chief
of surgery cut into the wrong part of a woman’s scalp.
This string of mistakes in 2007 led the Rhode Island Health Department to conduct an investigation.
Experts determined that all doctors and staff members involved failed to employ the principle
of universal protocol - a professional guideline that requires all personnel in medical facilities
to consult pre-approved checklists to avoid unintentional malpractice.
8.
Right Leg, Wrong Leg In 1995, while a patient at the University
Community Hospital in Tampa, Florida, a man suffering from diabetes was taken into surgery
to have his lower leg amputated.
As a result of a perfect storm of mistaken information given to Dr. Rolando R. Sanchez,
the surgeon responsible for the procedure, the wrong leg was amputated.
Despite many of his colleagues voicing support for Sanchez and coming to his defense in the
ensuing months, his medical license was suspended for a six-month period and he was fined 15
thousand dollars by the state of Florida.
In order to settle a malpractice suit filed by the patient who fell victim to the mistake,
both Sanchez and the hospital paid him over a million dollars in damages.
7.
“I’ve got this.”
As the founder and chief surgeon of Pennsylvania’s Kane Summit Hospital, Dr. Evan O’Neill Kane
became nationally known not only for his highly successful career as a surgeon, but also the
dramatic testimony he gave as a medical expert that led to the acquittal of his son who was
facing murder charges.
He also gained a reputation for literally signing above the stitches he applied to people
after surgery by tattooing the letter “K” in morse code near the incision sites.
But Kane is perhaps best known for performing surgery on himself not once, not twice, but
on three different occasions.
In 1919, at the age of 58, he amputated his own badly infected finger.
Then in 1921, at the age of 59, he extracted his own appendix, leading him to become the
first person in history to successfully carry out such a risky procedure.
When asked why he chose to do this, Kane stated that he wanted to experiment with the effects
of the newly introduced drug novocaine from the patient’s perspective.
His objective was to gain further insight into the drug’s benefits compared to its
long-used and incredibly dangerous predecessor, cocaine.
Just over ten years later, at the age of 70, Kane repaired his own hernia.
While this procedure was also a success that showed no subsequent signs of complication,
Kane died of pneumonia a couple months later.
He is now considered a pioneering, albeit peculiar, figure in the history of American
medicine.
6.
Potentially Explosive In 2011, a Mexican street vendor was struck
in the face by a live grenade that had been fired at her through a grenade launcher.
It did not explode.
With the remarkably dangerous object lodged in her jaw, the vast majority of personnel
at the hospital where it was discovered refused to treat her because they feared for their
lives.
Eventually, Dr. Lidia Soto and three other staff members stepped forward to perform the
uniquely risk-filled operation.
Accompanied by two bomb defusal experts from the Mexican government, the team brought the
terrified woman to an open field in order to limit the potential loss of life in the
event that the extraction was a failure.
After four hours under unparalleled pressure, the surgery ended successfully.
While the victim faced years of further procedures, she and the group of professionals who put
their lives on the line for her all survived the experience.
5.
Unqualified and Underfed Due to a quirk in Washington state law at
the time, a woman named Laura Burfield Hazzard was granted a medical license in the early
1900s, despite never having attended a single day of medical school.
She established a hospital in Olalla, Washington, called Wilderness Heights.
Hazzard was a staunch believer in fasting as a remedy for almost any sickness or injury.
Patients under her care were prescribed asparagus, oranges and tomatoes - all of which were provided
sparingly in liquid form.
In rare cases, her approach worked and certain patients recovered.
But her lack of comprehension of basic medical sciences was blamed for the deaths of over
40 people.
Starvation was the leading cause of decline in almost all of them, so much so that Hazzard’s
facility was nicknamed “Starvation Heights” by local residents.
She was convicted of manslaughter in 1912 and was later discovered to have defrauded
the estate of one of her wealthiest patients.
After serving two years in prison, she received a full pardon from the governor of Washington
and moved with her family to New Zealand.
She worked there as a dietitian until she was fined for violating the country’s laws
regulating medical practitioners.
She subsequently returned to Washington, opened a new facility and continued prescribing quack
medicine until that facility burned down in 1935.
Hazzard died during a self-imposed fasting period in 1938.
Today, she is recognized as one of the worst serial killers in American history.
Her psychotic devotion to an unproven remedy brought new meaning to the term “malpractice.”
4.
The Worst Headache In 2006, during an armed robbery in China’s
Yunnan Province, 33-year-old Li Fu was stabbed in the head.
He never lost consciousness.
Unknown to anyone at the time, the handle to the knife that was used in the attack broke
off, so the physicians who attended to Li thought they were treating a basic stab wound.
What they didn’t know was that the knife blade remained embedded in his skull.
After more than four years of painful, debilitating migraines, Li sought further professional
help.
The ten-centimeter blade was discovered by the doctors he consulted and was promptly
removed during cranial surgery.
Many were amazed that he survived for so long with a foreign object lodged in his brain.
Unfortunately, this kind of oversight is common in the medical community.
In 2010, a British woman learned that a swab had been left inside her by doctors who had
performed surgery on her 14 years earlier.
3.
Just Stepping Out If you’re being wheeled into to an operating
room to have surgery of any kind, you’re most likely hoping that the doctor performing
the procedure is both capable and alert.
Just like in many other work environments, outside distractions or concerns can sometimes
invade the zone of concentration required in all medical facilities.
One surgeon, Dr. David Arndt, took this natural lapse in focus to an extreme when, in the
middle of a reparative surgery on a patient’s spine, he left Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to deposit his paycheck.
After reportedly telling his staff he wouldn’t be gone longer than five minutes, Arndt took
more than half an hour to drive to his local bank, make his deposit, drive back to the
hospital, and scrub in a second time to continue the surgery.
According to hospital officials, Arndt left another doctor in charge during his absence
who was not certified to perform the procedure.
Upon his return, Arndt informed his team that ongoing financial issues necessitated his
departure.
The hospital temporarily suspended him while a review of the incident was conducted.
When the patient found out about what had happened, he filed a malpractice against both
Arndt and the hospital.
After determining that his actions deemed him a danger to the public, Arndt was stripped
of his medical license and his reputation was irreparably damaged.
It was later discovered that the once-revered spinal surgeon was deeply in debt from various
legal problems that had stretched on for years.
He is currently serving prison time for multiple counts of drug possession and assault.
2.
Keep the Receipt Many people who have been in relationships
can recall receiving a bizarre or unwelcome present from their significant others.
But in 2002, New Jersey medical student Ahmed Rashed took the “unconventional gift”
idea to an entirely new level when he gave his girlfriend the severed left hand of a
corpse.
Adding to an already weird situation, his girlfriend accepted the item, preserved it
in a water-filled jar and left it out for display on her bedroom dresser.
During a search of her house resulting from an unrelated situation, local police officers
found the hand and an investigation was launched into how it had come into her possession.
Rashed later admitted that, while in his first year at the University of Medicine and Dentistry
in Newark, he removed the hand from a dissected cadaver that was about to be cremated.
His attorney stated that Rashed was oblivious to the illegality of his actions.
In 2007, he pleaded guilty to third-degree theft and was prohibited from returning to
his pursuits as a medical doctor for the extent of his five-year probation.
1.
Branded While recovering from the birth of her first
child, a woman in Long Island was horrified to discover that her OB-GYN, 61-year-old Dr.
Allan Zarkin, had carved his initials into her abdomen after performing a Caesarean section.
Though this bizarre breach of confidence between a doctor and his patient was unsettling enough,
it was doubly painful for Zarkin’s victim because the two had become friends over the
course of her pregnancy.
She and her husband even invited him to spend time with them at their summer home.
After the shocking discovery of what he had done to her, investigators from the Manhattan
district attorney’s office and the New York State Department of Health explored other
disconcerting aspects of Zarkin’s words and deeds while working at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center.
These included inappropriate conduct while operating on his patients and rude, suggestive
comments he made to hospital co-workers.
With his client facing criminal prosecution with the possibility of 25 years in prison,
along with a 5.5 million-dollar lawsuit from his scarred patient, Zarkin’s lawyer stated
that the physician was suffering from Pick’s disease - a condition similar to dementia
that attacks the brain’s ability to determine proper conduct.
After settling the lawsuit, Zarkin was barred by the court from pursuing a renewal of his
medical license for five years.
The hospital received a 14 thousand-dollar fine from the state of New York.