An Ohio woman has sued University of Toledo Medical Center (UTMC) and its orthopedic surgeon, Dr. David Sohn, alleging that Dr. Sohn was supposed to perform an ACL surgical repair on her left knee in 2023 but instead removed a healthy tendon from her right leg.
According to the 33-year-old plaintiff, Talisia Foster, Dr. Sohn wrote in her medical record: “After harvesting the first of two hamstring tendons, I was notified that we had started operating on the incorrect knee. We stopped surgery and contacted patient’s family (mother). I explained our error and asked whether she wished for me to proceed. She said yes.”
Barbara Foster, Talisia Foster’s mother, recalled the telephone conversation she had with Dr. Sohn: “I’m still in shock like, ‘Wait a minute,’ ‘Well, since we already have this tendon out, should I go ahead and do the left knee? I don’t want to waste the tendon.’”
According to reporting, Foster’s her left knee was visibly marked with the surgeon’s initials before the surgery. It remains unclear whether the hospital’s surgical time-out protocol was followed (if it was followed, the wrong knee surgery should not have occurred).
Foster alleges that as a result of her wrong knee surgery, she has nerve pain in her right leg and the ACL surgery on her left knee failed. She had to leave her job and apply for disability, and she has lost her ability to care for or play with her two-year-old and eight-year-old children. Foster alleges that her doctors have told her that she will need a left full knee replacement and that her right knee injuries may never fully heal.
The results of a study published by the American College of Surgeons in 2023 stated, in part:
“While strides continue to be made to reduce wrong-site surgeries, these events persist despite being considered “never events” in healthcare. Wrong-site surgeries are events that can cause serious and possibly permanent medical or emotional harm to a patient, including death.”
“From 1995 to 2005, The Joint Commission found that wrong-site surgery was the second-most frequently reported sentinel event, which is defined as “a patient safety event that results in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm.” These data were a factor in The Joint Commission implementing the Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong-Site, Wrong-Procedure, and Wrong-Person Surgery in 2003 that involves three important steps:
- Conducting a preprocedure verification process
- Marking the procedure site
- Performing a time-out
However, wrong-site surgeries were still happening. In 2022, wrong-site surgery accounted for 6% of the 1,441 sentinel events reviewed by The Joint Commission. Reporting of sentinel events to The Joint Commission is voluntary, meaning no conclusions should be drawn about the actual relative frequency of events or trends in events over time.”
If you or a loved one may have been harmed as a result of surgery on the wrong body part, or unnecessary surgery, you should promptly seek the legal advice of a medical malpractice attorney in your state, who may investigate your medical malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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