Surgeon sued for double booking surgery

There’s a reason why the American College of Surgeons (ACS) recommends asking patients if they’re okay with a concurrent surgery before operating. A Manhattan doctor found that out the hard way, after two former patients sued him last month for $14 million, according to the Boston Globe.

The patients claim that David B. Samadi, MD, chief of urology at Lenox Hill Hospital, allowed doctors-in-training to perform their prostate surgeries, and was only present for 25 minutes for one of the surgeries. Further, they claimed they were put kept under general anesthesia longer than necessary to hide Samadi’s absence, and that the operations were botched. 

Last year, a review of more than 2,000 neurosurgical cases published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found no greater risk of postoperative complications for patients operated on by surgeons conducting overlapping surgeries. That said, the ACS guidelines are clear that patients need to know about and consent to an concurrent surgery before a provider does one.

Bradley T. Truax, MD, principal consultant of the Truax Group, says that patients should absolutely be informed if you plan to do their surgery concurrently.

“It is one thing for the surgeon to discuss with the patient that other personnel (residents, fellows, surgical assistants, etc.) will be participating in their surgery,” he says. “But the surgeon needs to make it clear what their roles will be and that the attending surgeon him/herself may not be present for the entire procedure.”