Surgeon Operates on Wrong Side of Brain

Greg Owen

Attorney

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An 86-year-old man underwent emergency surgery at Rhode Island Hospital on July 30. The surgery was necessitated due to bleeding in the patient's brain.

It appears that a nurse practitioner did not record which side of the brain was in need of surgery. Unbelievably, Dr. Frederick Harrington did not check a CT scan for the missing information, instead he committed medical malpractice and actually relied on his recollection of the area of the brain in need of surgery. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed.

Eventually, the error was caught by the surgeon. He then began operating on the correct side of the elderly man's brain. Three weeks after the surgery the patient died. It is unknown at this time whether the medical malpractice caused his death. Not surprisingly, Dr. Harrington is no longer to do surgery until an investigation has been conducted.

For more information on this subject matter, please review our section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.