‘SICK TO THEIR STOMACH’

Surgeon’s Error Shocked Staff in ‘Wrong Organ’ Case

A Florida surgeon’s license has been suspended on the heels of a lawsuit alleging that he made several preventable errors that led to him fatally removing a man’s liver.

The Florida surgeon who killed a man when he allegedly removed his liver by accident has had his medical license suspended, the Daily Mail reported. Seventy-year-old William Bryan of Alabama was on vacation in the Sunshine State when he began experiencing abdomen pain he was told was caused by an enlarged spleen at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital. However, an incident report filed with the lawsuit from Bryan’s family reveals that the hospital staff “had concerns” that surgeon Thomas Shaknovsky was not skilled enough to perform the “complicated” procedure. Shaknovsky claimed he found a splenic artery aneurysm, and he fired a stapling device “blindly into the abdomen” in an effort to control hemorrhaging. Yet his account of the botched operation didn’t line up with Bryan’s autopsy and accounts from staff. One staff member recalled feeling “sick to their stomach” upon seeing Bryan’s liver on the table and shocked when Shaknovsky told staff “that it was a spleen,” according to the report. “This level of dishonesty and fraud is incompatible with the level of integrity that is necessary to be able to practice safely as an osteopathic physician,” the report reads.