Hospital removes wrong testicle during surgery
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, April 11, 2007
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Surgeons at the Los Angeles VA Hospital removed the wrong testicle during surgery to remove an atrophied testicle from a patient, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The patient and his family have sued the hospital because of the botched surgery. The hospital has apologized to the family, but declined to make any other comment to the Times because of the pending litigation.
The medical record, obtained by the Times, shows that the patient, Benjamin Houghton, signed a consent form that stated the right testicle was to be removed, when it was the left testicle that had atrophied and became painful after chemotherapy treatment in 1989. Houghton says he was asked to identify the surgical site before the procedure, and he pointed to his left testicle, but the surgical site was not marked at the time.
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