Surgeon Removes Healthy Kidney

A surgeon in Minnesota left a cancerous kidney in a patient and instead removed a healthy one. The doctor has promised to stop practicing medicine after his horrible mistake was revealed a day later by pathology reports. Surgeons will now have to double check CAT scans and MRI’s before beginning surgery. There is no word on how the patient is doing, or whether he will need a kidney transplant to survive. Most people can live with only one kidney, and now that his healthy one is gone, he might need such a transplant. Therefore, the doctor’s mistake has affected not just one person, but perhaps two since that kidney could have gone to someone else. It is also interesting to consider the recourses this patient would be left with in Florida, where one size fits all medical malpractice claims would limit his recovery for his suffering due to this shocking mistake.