Brain surgeons Thomas Milhorat, Paolo Bolognese suspended for abandoning anesthetized patient in OR

[WriteDown]

Source: Daily News

Two of New York's highest-paid surgeons have been suspended for abandoning a patient in the operating room after she was anesthetized and prepped for brain surgery.

Thomas Milhorat - chief of neurosurgery at North Shore University Hospital - and his colleague, Paolo Bolognese, were suspended for two weeks, officials confirmed.

The Long Island hospital took the rare step even though the surgeons are two of its biggest stars.

Milhorat earned $7.2 million in 2007 according to a Crain's New York survey - by far the biggest surgeon salary in the metro area - and Bolognese made $2.4 million....

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/06/2009-05-06_brain_surgeons_thomas_milhorat_paolo_bolognese_suspended_for_abandoning_anesthet.html

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Ah, have to love our doctors who have sworn an oath to "do not harm."

[petronius]

1. I don't get why Milhorat was suspended - if the other doctor was scheduled for

the surgery, would they really want a back-up to go in cold and ad-lib a brain surgery? :shrug:

[Ian David]

2. Well, it's not exactly rocket science. n/t

[supernova]

3. Sounds like a miscommunication between docs

about who was the attending and who was the surgeon.

But, it leaves the patient up in the air with an unresolved problem.

If they don't work out their issues, patients will suffer.

[Iowa]

21. I don't think this is all that uncommon...

My father had a hip replacement at the Mayo Clinic by one of their "stars". We learned later that this guy would leave to go work on another patient - and then come back - leaving my father anesthetized for far longer than he would have been otherwise. We found out because a resident mentioned it. We now ALWAYS ask whether the Dr will stay with the patient the entire time. If they won't (which we haven't encountered since that one ortho turd), we'll go to someone else. Who would even think this is something one would need to verify? And what else are we missing that we don't even know about?

Be careful out there folks!

[mbperrin]

4. Thank GAWD that woman didn't have to suffer through single-payer!

This certainly proves that what we have now is the best system on earth!!!!!

Right?

[avaistheone1]

9. lol

:rofl:

[avaistheone1]

5. What those surgeons did was horrific.

[ShortnFiery]

6. Yes, and of all people THESE MEN should know better ...

After all, SCHEDULING is not exactly BRAIN SURGERY. :silly: :yoiks:

[GCP]

7. At least they didn't open her up before walking out

:eyes:

[avaistheone1]

8. Thank God!

I think several years ago there was a brain surgeon in Boston who did exactly that -
he left to go out and get a cheeseburger.

[GCP]

10. No, he went to the bank to deposit a check!

True story.

[avaistheone1]

12. Well then in that case he had his priorities straight.

Or maybe he needed the cash to purchase cheeseburgers.

[WriteDown]

11. In Wilmington, NC...

There was one who left to play 9 holes of golf before returning.

[Blue_Tires]

14. lol

i was just about to chime in with a golf joke

[AnneD]

23. There was actually a case where an ortho doc was doing back surgery...

had the patient open and left to go to the bank and deposit his pay check. Now there is a guy that has his priorities in order. He was disbarred in that state I think.

[arikara]

13. We had an experience with a neurosurgeon

... he was the coldest meanest bastard I ever met in my life. My child was laying in a coma with a head injury and he told me that she would probably die. Then when she didn't he said she would never wake up. On my own I spent every day with her talking to her and stimulating her, and when she did wake up through NO effort of his, he said she would never get out of a wheelchair. A year later she walked (barely... but proudly) into his office for a followup. He looked at her, called her by the wrong name and told this courageous 12 year old child that she would never get any better than she was that day. That was all he had to say. We went out the door, her in tears and me furious. Right outside the door where he could hear, I told her not to listen to him, he didn't know a damned thing. He said she would die... he was wrong. He said she wouldn't wake up, he was wrong. He'd been wrong about everything so far and he was wrong about that too, of course she was going to get better. She told me later if I hadn't done that she would have given up. How many others give up because they listen to these uncaring egotistical bastards.

And I was right. She recovered and is now in the medical profession herself. With her humanity intact and treating her patients like people.
I wonder if neurosurgeons are a breed apart like the creep we had to deal with.

[bbgrunt]

18. yikes, what a horrific story. Too bad

you couldn't find a replacement for him. But kudos for your refusal to let yourself or your daughter be beaten down by the brute.

[ramapo]

19. Absolutely not

My son had a brain tumor. Our neurosurgeon was kind, caring, and accessible. He took a terrifying situation and made it less so. He took special care to speak with directly and reassure our son. We couldn't have been more pleased with his care and expertise and we will always be thankful and grateful to a fine surgeon and man.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Faces for the article:

http://www.nslij.com.nyud.net:8090/images/aboutus/aboutusbios/Dr%20Milhorat.jpg http://www.jenniescott.org.nyud.net:8090/resources/_wsb_333x238_DrMilhoratSept05.jpg

Thomas Milhorat

Chairman of Neurosurgery
North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) and LIJ Medical Center

Chairman of neurosurgery, Dr. Milhorat is also the director of the Harvey Cushing Institutes of Neuroscience, and director and founder of its Chiari Institute. Dr. Milhorat joined the health system in 2001, which provided him with the opportunity to establish the Chiari Institute and fulfill his dream of a multidisciplinary clinical and research center for patients with Chiari malformations, syringomyelia and related disorders. He was the driving force in establishing the health system’s Cushing Institutes in 2006.

Dr. Milhorat is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on Chiari malformation of the brain, a condition in which excess brain tissue pushes against the cerebellum in the brain and spinal cord at the base of the skull, disturbing the flow of cerebrospinal fluid. In 2002, he and his colleague Paolo Bolognese, MD, became the first neurosurgeons in the world to adapt color Doppler ultrasonography to precisely measure cerebrospinal fluid intraoperatively – a key to successful surgical outcomes.

Prior to joining North Shore-LIJ, Dr. Milhorat served as professor and chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn. In 1993, he established a Chiari center at the Long Island College Hospital. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Milhorat was chairman of neurosurgery at the Children’s Medical Center in Washington, DC. He was also a researcher for two years at the National Institutes of Health. During this time, Dr. Milhorat’s investigations on hydrocephalus and the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid led to landmark articles in Science, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of Neurosurgery .

www.nslij.com/page.cfm?id=11460

~~~~~~~~~

http://www.chiariinstitute.com.nyud.net:8090/images/supplied/paolo_pic.jpg http://www.jenniescott.org.nyud.net:8090/resources/_wsb_336x204_DrBSept05.jpg

Paolo A. Bolognese

A native of Torino, Italy, Paolo A. Bolognese, M.D., graduated cum laude from the Medical School of the University of Turin. In 1990, he completed his neurosurgical training at the same university under the guidance of Professor Victor A. Fasano, an international leader in the field of high-tech applied to neurosurgery.

During this time, Dr. Bolognese became the leading worldwide expert in the field of laser Doppler flowmetry applied to neurosurgery and the top European figure in the field of neurosurgical intraoperative ultrasound. Upon the death of his former mentor, in 1992 he accepted the invitation of Dr. Thomas H. Milhorat to transfer his laser Doppler research to the United States and to be retrained under Dr. Milhorat at SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn.1n addition to his U.S. neurosurgical training, Dr. Bolognese became the first trainee of the Fellowship in the Surgical Management of Chiari I Malformation and Related Disorders under Dr. Milhorat.

www.chiariinstitute.com/dr_paolo_bolognese.html

[Naipes]

16. The surgeon never showed up!

He didn't exactly "abandon" her, as in, he walked out of the OR. He never showed up in the first place! Hospital staff could not find the guy and the other surgeon refused to operate because it wasn't his patient. The other surgeon, Milhorat, wasn't even in the OR, he was called to fill in for the missing surgeon.

Regardless of all this, I think the most telling aspect of the whole story was this:
Terry Lynam, a North Shore spokesman, said Milhorat and Bolognese are two of the hospital's "highest-volume surgeons."

"High volume" means this hospital is running a meat processing factory. The bottom line is all that matters and screw the patients. Welcome to health care in America. It's like that classic I Love Lucy episode where the candy is coming off the conveyor belt and Lucy cannot keep up, except this isn't funny. Lives are at stake.

[Mojorabbit]

20. I don't blame the second surgeon

for not doing the procedure. I would have not done it either if I was in his place. He would not have had time to review her chart and history, looked at all the MRI films, etc. No way. That is an accident waiting to happen.

[AnneD]

24. I agree with you....

as a Nurse-I was once asked to take charge of a group of mental patients in an emergency situation (Rita). Now they are residents and do not wear identification band and because of the situation-the medication books that contained their pictures and the times of medication administration was not available yet their meds were. I was suppose to take the aide workers word that the patient was the one that I needed to give the medication to.

Now let me add that 2 weeks prior, and aide misidentified a patient with the same first name (and not a common name I might add) and on their word- I gave the wrong medicine to a patient and sent her to the hospital. I was under pressure to pass out all these morning meds (I had to travel to several cottages) but I did catch this mistake before it was too late. I had to go through an investigation and could have even lost my license (even though this set up was a disaster waiting to happen)

Once the situation was clear to me (I had refused to clock in because I was afraid that this would happen again), I immediately refuse to take report and walked out (a professional first for me). If I had taken report-I take responsibly. I am happy to take responsibility for my personal action, but I refuse to take the blame for sorry planning and dangerous staffing. I totally agree with the surgeon that refused. The whole thing should have been scrubbed when the communication error became evident.

You'll start seeing more of this-especially after those medical folks in NOLA were sued by the state for the care they tried to give during Katrina. The surgeons were "high volume" so they will still have a job. I am a lowly Nurse and they would leave me twisting in the wind in a New York minute.

[Hugin]

17. If, instead, they were Investment Bankers, they would've given them 'talent retention bonuses'.

at least the Hospital suspended them.

[choie]

22. could somebody explain to me why

these doctors make so much money?

[AnneD]

25. They are ...

'high volume'....they bring in business. I am sure they are good Doc's because practice makes perfect.

I guess I look at thing differently. I would rather have the best surgeon with poor bedside manners than some one with good bedside manners but iffy skills. But there are Docs that have skill AND compasion-and they are good to their staff to boot. Those are the ones the Nurses walk over hot coals for.