A Florida physician has been indicted in reference to the dying of a 70-year-old man after allegedly eradicating the unsuitable organ throughout surgical procedure.
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Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, was indicted by a grand jury with second-degree manslaughter within the August 2024 dying of a 70-year-old man from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the Workplace of the State Lawyer for the First Judicial Circuit stated Tuesday.
He was taken into custody in Miramar Seaside, Florida, on Monday morning and transported to the Walton County Jail forward of his courtroom look Tuesday.
Prosecutors allege in a press launch that on Aug. 21, 2024, throughout what was scheduled to be a laparoscopic splenectomy, Shaknovsky by chance eliminated the unnamed sufferer’s liver as a substitute of his spleen. The transfer resulted in “catastrophic blood loss and the affected person’s dying on the working desk,” the press launch stated.
After the surgical procedure, the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners filed a courtroom order to briefly droop Shaknovsky’s medical license. That license was revoked by the Alabama Medical Licensure Fee that very same yr.
His Florida license was additionally suspended in 2024.
The courtroom order to droop his license states that Shaknovsky really useful surgical procedure after the 70-year-old affected person got here into the hospital with complaints of stomach ache, and imaging “revealed a suspected enlarged spleen and blood within the peritoneum with no lively hemorrhage.”
For the following two days, Shaknovsky suggested the affected person, who wished to return dwelling to Alabama, to get surgical procedure, the submitting says. On the third day, Shaknovsky “continued to strain” the affected person, who then acquiesced, based on the submitting.
Shaknovsky continued the operation even whereas the affected person went into cardiac arrest in the course of the surgical procedure, based on the submitting.
“Dr. Shaknovsky eliminated an organ he believed to be the spleen, however as a result of his shock and the chaos, he was unable to correctly determine the organ,” the submitting states.
After the surgical procedure, the physician stated that the affected person died of a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm, the submitting states.
An post-mortem discovered “no proof of a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm,” based on the submitting. And whereas the affected person’s “spleen and its attachments have been untouched and within the regular place, his liver was lacking,” the submitting alleged.
The submitting additionally accused Shaknovsky of two different cases of malpractice, one in every of which the board alleges led to the dying of one other affected person.
The board accused Shaknovsky of eradicating a part of a affected person’s pancreas throughout a routine surgical procedure in Could 2023, the place the affected person was presupposed to have their left adrenal gland eliminated.
It additionally accused Shaknovsky of eradicating a part of a affected person’s gut throughout one other process in July 2023, inflicting a gastrointestinal perforation, the place a gap develops within the gut. Shortly after the surgical procedure, the affected person was moved to the ICU and died, the submitting states.
It’s unclear whether or not Shaknovsky has retained an legal professional. The State Lawyer’s Workplace of the First Judicial Circuit didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
