Grand jury brings manslaughter charge over fatal 2024 operation where patient died on table
A surgeon in Florida has been indicted for manslaughter after he wrongly removed a patient’s liver instead of his spleen during an August 2024 procedure.
Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, was indicted by a grand jury in Tallahassee on Monday after prosecutors said he botched the surgery of 70-year-old William Bryan, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
The jury of the first judicial circuit heard that Shaknovsky, of DeFuniak Springs, 120 miles (193km) west of Tallahassee, had been scheduled to perform an operation called a laparoscopic splenectomy on the patient, but instead cut out the man’s liver.
I read the report the level of incompetence is insane. There were multiple medical staff who were concerned about the surgeon and facility’s capabilities to handle such a non-routine procedure. Multiple people noticed that there was a high chance of complications and NONE of them stepped up to argue against the surgeon. The CMO was only called after the surgeon slapped the excised liver on the table… Multiple points of failure, and nobody did anything. Of course the surgeon is at fault. But, I can’t believe nobody tried to stop it.
Welcome to medical culture. Some of these surgeons are highly trained, vindictive assholes who expect medical errors to be covered up.