Benjamin Houghton, 47 Air Force veteran has filed a federal lawsuit against the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center after undergoing a medical procedure in which surgeons made a mistake drastically. After discovering that the left testicle was potentially cancerous Houghton, Houghton had surgery to remove the testicle. The problem is that surgeons accidentally delete the right (or in this case, wrong) testicle. Houghton, left with the cancerous testicle yet, now is seeking $ 200,000 in damages to cover hospital and medical care. Now, Houghton and his wife, Monica, takes his audience the story, hoping to gain the attention of the VA, whose practices and standards of health care have been strongly questioned in recent years. Although Houghton had been diagnosed with metastatic testicular cancer in 1989, had undergone chemotherapy and remained in generally good health until shortly before undergoing surgery. It was only when the testicle became painful that he sought medical care through surgery. While the testicle is said to have been cancerous, Houghton has stated that the operation was not urgent. Now he is left with a healthy and cancerous testicle was removed leaving Houghton wrongly in a desperate situation. During the procedure, which was also a vasectomy. Houghton has received an apology from Dr. Dean Norman, chief of staff of the System of Greater Los Angeles VA. However, Norman has specified that, since they are now in the midst of litigation, which can not completely rule Houghton, or the incident itself. The procedure itself was conducted by John T. Leppert, a resident of medicine at UCLA. According to Houghton signed consent form before surgery, the form said that the right testicle must be removed. Houghton was told by the surgeon that the form included "what was said before" and simply sign. Houghton admits he never read the consent form, assuming that the information was correct, because it had already been discussed. However, also noted that Houghton was asked to identify the affected testicle and pointed to his left testicle. This step, to mark and identify the surgical site is common, but nobody remembers Houghton scored the testicle that had indicated. Although the operation on the wrong leg or an organ (or sometimes even the wrong patient in all) is said to be rare, it does occasionally happen. For Houghton and his wife, Monica, just hope that by exposing the evils of the VA medical system that can save someone else's distress they have experienced. Source
this is avery sensitive message to us as doctors, we need to be extremely careful before undertaking any medical procedure.
