Dive Brief:
- A patient has filed a lawsuit in the Connecticut Supreme Court against Yale New Haven Hospital.
- Deborah Craven, 60, had a precancerous lesion and underwent surgey on May 18, 2015, to remove part of her eighth rib but the surgeons removed part of her seventh rib instead despite the fact the correct rib had been marked with metal coils and dye. The right body part was removed after a second surgery.
- Craven did not receive an apology and one of her surgeons tried to cover up the mistake, according to her lawyer.
Dive Insight:
Last week, Yale issued a statement saying, "We recognized that an error was made, we informed and apologized to the patient, and we immediately reported it to the Connecticut Department of Health."
The complaint says the surgeons should have realized their mistake immediately after the surgery because they had not removed the marking coils. Craven is also accusing the surgeons of failing to do an X-ray after the surgical procedure.
A Vox
report from earlier this month discussed how the mistakes that medical professionals make take an emotional toll on them.