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Suit says doctor botched surgery
By JENNIFER LIBERTO For the second time, a Hernando County doctor has been accused of operating on the wrong leg of a patient. The Florida Board of Medicine had fined orthopedic surgeon Imad E. Tarabishy $10,000 for the first fouled surgery, which occurred in 1999 at Citrus Memorial Hospital in Inverness. The second operation took place just two months after the state Health Department had finished its investigation of the first incident. On May 4, 2001, Betty A. Weier, 69, of Spring Hill was admitted to the Florida Endoscopy and Surgery Center at 12900 Cortez Blvd., Spring Hill, where Tarabishy was to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon in her left leg, according to a lawsuit Weier filed against Tarabishy in Hernando County Circuit Court. Weier was anesthetized face up, lying on her back, and, according to Tarabishy's post-operative report, the doctor saw "the sign of 'no' on the right side." "I made a comment that this is a very good way of identifying the leg," Tarabishy wrote in the report, which is included as an exhibit in the lawsuit. Tarabishy left the room to scrub before the operation, the report states. When he returned, the patient had been turned onto her stomach. Tarabishy walked over to the left side of the table and did not realize that Weier's legs had changed positions when she was flipped over, according to the report. Tarabishy made the incision into the wrong leg, told the operating staff that the tendon looked fine and questioned the MRI scan. A nurse checked records and alerted Tarabishy to his mistake. "We inspected the other side, and, indeed, we were doing the wrong side," Tarabishy wrote in the postoperative report. Tarabishy stitched up the leg, performed surgery on the correct leg and apologized to Weier and her husband, the report said. Tarabishy did not inform the couple about his other wrong-site surgery, said Weier's attorney, John Leighton of Miami. The lawsuit also alleges that Tarabishy damaged the good leg, resulting in "disability, disfigurement, mental anguish." Weier is seeking unspecified damages. Tarabishy declined to comment about the case, but remarked that he was not the only local surgeon to have been disciplined by the Board of Medicine for a wrong-site surgery. Hernando County orthopedic surgeon Terrell Bounds also was penalized by the Board of Medicine and fined $5,000 in 2001 for operating on the wrong finger of a patient in 1997. Bounds did not return a phone message from the Times. While surgeries performed on the wrong site are uncommon throughout the United States, the number of reported cases has increased slightly in Florida over the years, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration. In 2001, the most recent year for which data is available, the number of wrong-site surgery cases reported in Florida was 52, out of about 1.3-million operations performed, said agency spokeswoman Kim Reed. In 1997, the number of wrong-site surgery cases reported was 18. "It's very rare. But when it happens, it hits the papers because no patient expects to go into a hospital and have an operation on the wrong site," said Boston orthopedic surgeon James Herndon, who is president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. "It's just not expected, and it shouldn't happen." Since 1997, the academy has advocated a "sign your site" program that directs surgeons to sign their initials to the spot intended for surgery, exactly where the incision is to be made. In Tarabishy's earlier wrong-site surgery, he operated on a 55-year-old patient who was admitted to Citrus Memorial on March 9, 1999, so that arthroscopic surgery could be performed on his right knee, according to state Department of Health records. The hospital staff prepared the patient's left knee for surgery, and Tarabishy operated on it instead. About two hours later, Tarabishy operated on the correct knee, after the mistake was discovered. The Board of Medicine has disciplined Tarabishy three times in Florida, said Florida Department of Health spokesman Bill Parizek. Tarabishy has been practicing medicine since 1974. His office is at 11339 Cortez Blvd. Parizek said he cannot discuss Department of Health investigations, so it is unclear whether the department is looking into the recent wrong-site surgery accusations. Health care facilities must report wrong-site surgeries to the state Agency for Health Care Administration, but that information is confidential. -- Jennifer Liberto covers business and development in Hernando County and can be reached at 848-1434 or liberto@sptimes.com
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