Doctors Transplant Kidney Into Wrong Patient

Story

Quote :

USC University Hospital announced Thursday that it temporarily shut down its kidney transplant program after a surgical mix-up last month.

A spokesman for the program says the error resulted in a kidney being transplanted into the wrong patient.

But hospital officials said the patient was not harmed because the kidney was a close enough match.

Well, thank goodness that someone got the kidney who needed it and who wouldn't reject it. But this is a massive screw-up that was mostly avoided by dumb luck (I say mostly because the patient who should've got the organ is now stuck waiting for the next one, and those don't exactly grow on trees).

Quote :

The review of the kidney transplant program, is expected to be complete by Feb. 18, at which time the USC University Hospital Transplant Institute will consider reactivation of the kidney program, according to the statement.

Staff is providing assistance to patients on the kidney wait list by helping them get on kidney wait lists at other facilities, if that is their choice.

The only drawback to that is that for most waiting lists you have to go through all the battery of tests again. They don't just accept another hospital's word, and you may get dropped further down the list depending on how may other patients have a more critical need.

So... whose kidney did that mofo get?

Well... extra kidney anyone?

But, seriously... That has got to be the single most embarrassing moment in that surgeon's life. Not to mention the mind fuck the patient got when he woke up stitched up like a baseball.

While that is MASSIVE fuck up, shutting down the program isn't gonna make it better; what's done is done and there are consecuences. Fire the people responsible, or reprimand them severely or something, but shutting down the program...that's just gonna make it worse for a bunch of other people, who desperately need hope and help, and who had nothing to do with this.

ETA: And, if I read right, I think no one got an extra kidney, they needed one, too, but not THAT ONE, what with compatibility issues and possible rejection and all.

ETA2: Also, I think a surgeon would've noticed two kidneys already there, when he opened up the guy, and might have been inclined to cancel the whole thing, had this been the case.

^
Wouldn't even a guy who needed a kidney still have two kidneys inside him? Or do they vanish randomly?

Quote :

But, seriously... That has got to be the single most embarrassing moment in that surgeon's life.

I know next to nothing about surgeons, but this sounds more like a bureaucrat's error.

Surgeon: Knife thingy. *Starts cutting stuff*
Surgeon: Kidney, needle, thread. *Starts sewing stuff*
Surgeon: Pay me when you wake up.

I get the feeling the surgeon himself couldn't have reasonably known that the kidney someone just brought into the room was the wrong one.

Why? It's not working properly and poisoning your bloodstream, pumping it full of waste. Why would it still be in there? Old times sake?

If he needed a kidney, he probably had a failing one or none, since you can do pretty well with one healthy kidney and dialisis exists.

And, yeah, that's not likely to be the surgeos fault, since he was a transplant patient anyway. Now if hed'd gone "One, two...oh, well! I'll just stitch it onto this one.", that would've been bad.

I'm suddenly reminded of something...

Quote :

Lisa: Dr. Hibbert, I thought you'd located another kidney for
Grampa!

Hibbert: Larry Hagman took it. He's got five of them now! And
three hearts! We didn't want to give them to him but he
overpowered us.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

^
Wouldn't even a guy who needed a kidney still have two kidneys inside him? Or do they vanish randomly?

If your kidneys fail, they atrophy to about the size of a ping-pong ball.

And the surgeon wouldn't check anyway - a transplanted kidney is just dropped into the void above the right hip.

Goat wrote:

Why? It's not working properly and poisoning your bloodstream, pumping it full of waste. Why would it still be in there? Old times sake?

If he needed a kidney, he probably had a failing one or none, since you can do pretty well with one healthy kidney and dialisis exists.

And, yeah, that's not likely to be the surgeos fault, since he was a transplant patient anyway. Now if hed'd gone "One, two...oh, well! I'll just stitch it onto this one.", that would've been bad.

Ah. The problem is that in my mind (have I mentioned I know NOTHING about surgeons, anatomy, or medicine in general?), when they had to transplant a kidney, they cut you open, cut the bad kidney out, and stuck the new one in (kind of like spark plugs). I wasn't aware they took the bad kidney out six months ago.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Ah. The problem is that in my mind (have I mentioned I know NOTHING about surgeons, anatomy, or medicine in general?), when they had to transplant a kidney, they cut you open, cut the bad kidney out, and stuck the new one in (kind of like spark plugs). I wasn't aware they took the bad kidney out six months ago.

Actually, they leave the bad ones in. It's too invasive to cut them out, and once they're dead they turn into non-threatening scar tissue.

They just drop the new one in and redo the plumbing. Then you do the pill regimen forever.

In some cases, it may not be a problem, just let them dry up, but if the kidney is failing, it's poisoning you. And if it's cancer, yeah, the have to take it out.

Spotts1701 wrote:

those don't exactly grow on trees

Hey, if those government blowhards hadn't rejected my funding requests, there would be a kidney tree in every home by now!