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Colorado plastic surgeon sentenced to 15 days in jail in teen patient’s death
(www.denverpost.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Jurisdictions have somewhat arbitrary definitions for these sorts of terms, but looking at the specifics of the case, it kinda maybe makes sense.
The victim went to him for surgery. When anesthesia was applied, she suffered cardiac arrest but did not immediately die. She was in a coma for 14 months before eventually passing away. They initially charged him with negligent homicide, but he was found not guilty. Instead, he was found guilty for the aforementioned attempted reckless manslaughter.
I am assuming "attempted" because they found him not directly culpable for the victim's later death, but his actions could have reasonably caused her death then and there. And the manslaughter over homicide because it was not intentional/motivated.
Why the use of reckless over negligent, I am not sure, but perhaps it may have something to do with the situation being an elective procedure that carries an inherent level of risk that the victim had to agree to before going in, or perhaps because he did try saving her life even though he had failed to arrange an immediate transfer to the hospital to get the care she needed.
Ultimately I feel like there was enough happening here to differentiate it from a normal manslaughter charge, basically. I agree with the sentence and am not mad he got off comparatively light, but I definitely would never seek his care after that. The real punishment is the end of his career.
I’m on mobile so the article is blocking me from reading it but really wish I could because this seems like a very interesting situation.
The main questions I have are, how many people were involved in her care? Was the surgery responsible for the surgery and anesthesia or was an anesthesiologist present? How long was she in cardiac arrest? If not and what type of resuscitation was needed? did he fail to administer adequate vasopressors or not recognize that she needed them or that she went into cardiac arrest?
Depending on the answers this could vary from any time in jail is unreasonable to life in jail is reasonable.
Anesthesia is VERY risky. It is routine for people to go into cardiac arrest during very routine and standard anesthesia for routine procedures, that’s what anesthesiologists do every day.. but without more information I can say death is a very real possibility from any anesthesia, if she went into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated then okay, that situation is something the surgeon should be able to handle and any attempt to transfer her somewhere before she is stable would violate EMTALA (in the US). If she didn’t then it is a risk of not waking up after anesthesia that needs to be explained and understood before undergoing any anesthesia. But if she went or remained hypotensive for too long that was not treated causing brain damage that’s more malpractice than manslaughter.
Additionally, EMS is generally not trained or equipped handle patients in this situation. Depending on how progressive the system is, they might be able to manage but being transferred from surgery that required resuscitation makes her a critical care patient, which leads me to understand why a doctor would be hesitant to handoff the patient. I say this as a paramedic who specializes in critical care transport that has dealt with many doctors that were hesitant to transfer care to me.
Wish I could read the article to form an opinion on this because if she stayed alive for 14 months I really would like to see how they connected that to him. I know alive can mean she has a pulse but no neurological activity but again that seems more like a malpractice situation rather than a criminal one. But oh well.