Austrian surgeon 'let teenage daughter drill hole in patient's skull'
Austrian surgeon 'let teenage daughter drill hole in patient's skull'
The alleged victim is said to have first read about the case in the media - only to be told a few months later by police that it was him the teenage girl was said to have helped operate on.
An Austrian surgeon allegedly let his teenage daughter drill a hole in a patient's skull.
Following a forestry accident in January, a 33-year-old man was flown by air ambulance to Graz University Hospital, Styria, southeastern Austria, with serious head injuries, according to Kronen Zeitung, an Austrian newspaper.
He needed emergency surgery, but the doctor allegedly let his 13-year-old daughter take part in operating on him.
The newspaper reported that she even drilled a hole in the patient's skull.
While the operation was said to have gone off without issue, the patient is still unable to work and investigations by the Graz public prosecutor's officer against the entire surgical team are continuing.
It wasn't until April that an anonymous complaint was logged to the public prosecutor's office about the allegations, the newspaper reported.
The alleged victim initially learned about the case in the media before later being told by authorities he was a witness in an investigation.
...bro what the fuck was everyone else in the OR doing? Craniotomies take a full team of people, and every single person in that room should have lost their shit when a 13 year old got anywhere near it, let alone scrubbed in to the damn surgery and fucking practice medicine.
Why didn't the nurse unplug the thing? Why didn't the tech cut the fucking cord? Why didn't the anesthesiologist scroll more aggressively on his iPad??
This story represents a metric shit-ton of failures, not just the surgeon/daughter.
I like how hating on anesthesiologists is universal. Thank you for the chuckle.
Maybe the ananymous report came from a member of the staff. I suspect that the kind of doctor who allows his unqualified daughter to operate on a patient is also an asshole to whom it is hard to say no as a subordinate.
So an average surgeon
I suspect that the kind of doctor who
Badabadam badabadabadabam oooooweeeeoooooo
It's only brain surgery, not rocket science. You can calm down 😅
Workplace politics, the surgeon is likely an asshole who shoves shit down the throat of anyone who disagrees with him.
Bold of you to assume she scrubbed in and didn't just put her flaming hot Cheetos down and jump in
Real answer: the drills are battery powered, there's no cord to cut (sometimes)
Jfc, having the girl in the room at all is a liability, let alone letting her touch the patient.
I hope this guy's malpractice lawyer has good heart meds.
In the US (the most sue happy place on earth) the guy probably wouldn't get a payout.
At least from reading the article, it infers the surgery and everything done went off without any issues. In the US, if you want to sue and win, you have to show that damages were done to you.
So while it was wildly inappropriate to have a 13 year old there or touching a patient at all, the patient would need to show that it caused damages.
According to a different source shared by @giriinthejungle, the attorney who has taken the case is suing the entire operating unit and expects whoever instructed the girl to drill the hole to be liable for assault. That is also the estimation of the chief regional patient attorney, provided the incident happened as reported by the media.
The neurosurgeon as well as one other doctor have already been let go by the hospital.
Police have not yet charged anyone, their investigation is still ongoing as of the time of the article (2024-08-26).
I dont get how the surgeon thought this was okay. When I have a regular check up I have to give permission for a student doctor to simply sit in on my appointment.
Having a 13 year old drill a hole in your head is waaay beyond that. I hope that doctor has their liscence revoked. They clearly don't give a single fuck about their patients.
Always say yes to the student doctors and nurses, proud to do my part, but I damned near made a nurse cry one day. LOL, she was wrecked.
I was in the hospital, think they were changing my IV to the other arm? Anyway, that was the sort of thing she was trying to stick me for. This poor woman couldn't nail a vein after SIX tries, gave up utterly humiliated. She keep poking and missing and apologizing, poking and missing and apologizing, getting more flustered each time. I was cold stoned on opiates, thought it was rather amusing, though the pain was getting a little annoying. Still, kept telling her it was cool, she's there to learn and I was happy to help.
They bring another nurse in and he had to make two passes. Y'all, you can clearly see my forearm veins. Maybe I was a little dehydrated or something to do with the drugs?
Don't surgeries usually have other assistants in the OR as well? Nobody was like "uh, hell no" to this guy bringing a child in and then letting her drill a hole in someone?
Plenty of other people in there, my ex-wife was a scrub, did nothing but OR. But you do not cross a surgeon, and especially not in his domain. Hence the anonymous complaint that kicked this off.
I think the biggest problem is that she was in no way insured to do that.
When "Bring Your Child to Work Day" goes wrong.
Technically, it went really well.
Aeroflot 593
My understanding is that the drill is fixtured in position in procedures as delicate as this, so that it really can't move and drill anywhere except where it needs to. Likely why Dad thought (wrongly) that it was harmless.
Surgical tech here!
In craniotomies, once the skull is exposed the doc will use basically a handheld dremel to punch a few holes, then connect the dots with a side-biting bit.
I was thinking this as well. Headlines, no matter the story, are frequently meant to rage bait people.
Is it pretty messed up? Yeah, I'd say that meets the definition. Was the guy actually in danger? Idk? I'm not a rocket scientist.
Edit: Side note, I just saw a "cranial fixation system" for the first time where I work about a week ago. I do not work in a medical field so this is just a really strange coincidence. I won't be elaborating on my career.
Was the guy in any danger?
He was receiving emergency brain surgery.
It likely was harmless, since the article infers ther surgery went well. It was just inappropriate and looks bad. When suing in the US you have to show damages. The patient may have a hard time winning his case.
I think that's an entirely wrong starting point. Operating on a person without their informed consent is bodily harm. You have to prove the patient agreed. (Ignoring for the moment situations where they can't.)
The patient never agreed to a surgery in part performed by that kid, but to one performed entirely by trained professionals.
The last time I remember children being invited to a high-intensity workplace ended up with them fatally crashing an airplane with 75 people on board.
Whilst this is absolutely true, I think it's more constructive to focus on the failure in design that led to the confusion in the cockpit.
There is no doubt that children in the cockpit contributed to the incident, but that incident could have happened with some other distraction.
The failure for the aircraft to correctly notify the pilot of the change in autopilot configuration was clearly very dangerous.
These are the policies of take-your-daughter-to-work day. The doctor's hands were tied.
I feel like there was something like this in one of the Naked Gun movies. If not, there should've been.
I missed this in the news, then saw link refers to Kronen Zeitung report which is not a great newspaper to cite so thought for sure it cannot be entirely true? But it is! And here another link from Die Presse (google translate works fine here) which tells us it was not a jerk dad who brought his kid to drill holes but an idiot mom.
Bring your kid to work day?
Yo did she do a good job tho?
The article said the operation was completed without issue, so sounds good to me.
It said "the operation was said to have gone off without issue, the patient is still unable to work". Who is saying it didn't have issues though? If the patient still isn't able to work, it sounds potentially like there may have potentially been issues. It may have actually not had issues, but I'm not taking the surgeon or hospital's word for it, assuming it is them who said this.
When the hands on experience goes too far
I mean we called this an apprenticeship for a thousand years or so, right?
How else is she going to learn?
Can't make an omelette without breaking a few skulls
I don't understand either if this is even a problem.
I'm confused why she was there in the first place
There's a reason we call neurosurgery the arts and crafts department.
Lucky, I didn’t get to drill holes during take your kid to work day
If your father was a porn star, then this was a good call.
Not the first news story regarding weird stuff happening while people are under anesthesia.
An intern got experience that made her more knowledgeable the rest of this is nonsense