Doctor Didn’t Have Privileges in Hospital but Performed Surgery Anyway; Resulted in Medical Malpractice!

Here is another lesson I hope to pass on to everyone. This is something I never thought of checking until law school.  But ANY and EVERY time you are having a procedure done by a physician at a hospital, check with the hospital to ensure the doctor is allowed to perform that procedure there.  This is called privileges, and it is essentially permission granted by a hospital to a particular physician—NOT to a physician’s entire firm—but to an actual and individual doctor.  Privileges are commonly reviewed by the hospital every few years to ensure the doctor is still qualified to practice in that hospital. 

Obviously there is a sliding scale for granting privileges.  What I mean by this is that for permission to perform minor the procedures, the doctor will likely easily have permission granted by the hospital after a brief review.  So it follows that the when a doctor wants permission to perform more dangerous, major, and invasive procedures, the hospital will conduct a detailed and thorough evaluation of the doctor’s credentials!  These approvals are generally always done way ahead of time; they are not done for specific patients.  In fact, it is incorrect for a doctor to advertise they have privileges when they do not!

In one case, a doctor was granted privileges for those minor procedures but was not granted privileges for the more dangerous and invasive procedures.  The doctor attempted to do a laparoscopic hernia surgery—which he was NOT allowed to do—and ended up perforating the patient’s bowel during the surgery.  Similarly with other a few other posts I have blogged about recently about damages to a patient’s bowels, this perforation caused a massive infection, sepsis shock, and organ failure.  Moreover, the patient had to have an additional surgery to have parts of his hip and colon removed; he now has to permanently wear a colostomy bag!

So PLEASE before you have a surgery done at the hospital DOUBLE CHECK to make sure a doctor has privileges!  The reason why this doctor didn’t have privileges to do this surgery was because he JUST finished his residency nine-months ago!  He was not using the correct procedure to do this operation and he failed to get proper assistance when he accidently caused the perforation!  Not only is this a complete failure by the doctor, but it is a failure by the hospital for not ensuring this doctor did not perform this surgery.

But what do you think?  I would love to hear from you!  I welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@mmolaw.net.  You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.