Because of which a 31-year-old young woman died, it aroused great interest among our readers. And we suddenly realized that we write about similar cases with enviable regularity. In order not to be unfounded, we have made a selection of the most sensational stories over the past 10 years. They all took place in Karelia, and each one hides its own misfortune. Read about what mistakes doctors make, whether you should blindly trust medicine, and why doctors go unpunished in our material. And let’s make a reservation right away: we don’t want to denigrate our doctors or cause distrust in them. All of the above are just bare facts.

Three million for the death of his wife and mother

This incident occurred in 2008, but the relatives of 33-year-old Anzhelika Anokhina will never forget about it. Then, during an operation at the gynecological hospital in Petrozavodsk, a diaper measuring 50 by 30 centimeters was left in Angelica’s body. Angelica lived for five months in terrible agony, went through probably a dozen doctors, and not one of them made the correct diagnosis. The husband of the deceased, Alexey Anokhin, who was left with three children, decided to punish with a ruble all the hospitals where his wife visited - the Gutkin Maternity Hospital, whose division is a gynecological hospital, emergency hospital, infectious diseases and republican hospitals. In fact, there was no need to prove the doctors’ guilt in court - as part of the criminal case, a Moscow examination was carried out, where it was written in black and white what unforgivable mistakes the doctors made at each stage of treatment. According to experts, Angelica’s death could have been prevented; there was plenty of time for this.

In 2011, a trial was held in this high-profile criminal case. The doctors did not want to admit guilt and cited the patient’s heavy weight.

– The woman was third degree obese, she had no muscles, they were replaced by adipose tissue. She did not have muscle tension, which occurs with an acute abdomen. The fat layer did not give symptoms of peritoneal irritation, they complained.

The death of her mother was experienced most severely by her 13-year-old daughter Alina; the girl became depressed, thought about suicide, and even had to seek help from a psychologist. The twin brothers, who were 8 years old, also remembered their mother. In general, the children were very attached to their mother. They cried when my mother was once again admitted to the hospital and asked her not to leave. According to the doctors’ recollections, Anzhelika Anokhina talked all the time about children and hurried to see them.

According to the court decision, the maternity hospital had to pay the Anokhin family one and a half million rubles for moral damages, 600 thousand - to the emergency hospital, half a million - to the infectious diseases hospital and 400 thousand - to the republican one.

Left without examination

A shocking story happened in the Prionezhsky region. A patient was brought to the head of the surgical department of a local hospital: a minor boy had been in an accident and urgently needed to be examined. But the doctor decided not to do a full abdominal examination and stated that everything was fine with the young man. Later it turned out that the young man suffered a serious liver injury, and his condition worsened. Doctors performed an emergency operation, but it did not help: the young man died.

For the fact that the doctor did not provide timely assistance to the patient, the court of first instance found the doctor guilty and sentenced him to imprisonment for a suspended term of 2 years with a probationary period of 2 years. In addition, the court also partially satisfied the civil claim of the victims for compensation for moral damage in the amount of 100 thousand rubles. But the meeting participants were dissatisfied with this decision and filed an appeal.

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia, having recently considered the case, reduced the doctor’s sentence to 1 year 11 months in prison with a probationary period of 2 years. And the civil claim for compensation for moral damage was canceled and sent for a new trial.

“They are doctors - they know better”

— I’ll buy a boat and go fishing. Nature, silence, beauty! — said Petrozavodsk resident Evgeniy Mekkiev about his plans for retirement. But in February 2014, the month of his 55th birthday, he fell ill. My back and chest hurt, the pain radiated to my right thigh. Doctors at the Departmental Clinical Hospital, where Evgeniy was observed as a railway employee, diagnosed an exacerbation of osteochondrosis.

The prescribed medications did not help Evgeniy. Every day the pain became stronger. As Evgeniy Mekkiev’s relatives recall, after three months there were so many medications that they did not fit on the windowsill: he was already taking handfuls of pills. Doctors prescribed more and more new medications. During these 5 months, judging by the entries in the card, the patient was seen by several doctors at the railway clinic: two different therapists, a neurologist, and a surgeon. And everyone wrote the same diagnosis - osteochondrosis. Meanwhile, the man could no longer move normally, much less work.

In June, Evgeniy was admitted to the railway hospital for two weeks. And again, we were treated for osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine and intercostal neuralgia. As stated in the discharge summary, after treatment the pain in the chest and back decreased. But pain appeared under the right shoulder blade. The patient was discharged home for outpatient treatment.

Believing the doctors that he had osteochondrosis, the man decided to undergo paid procedures at the Bone Clinic of Petrozavodsk. But after two weeks of procedures, he did not feel any better. At home, Evgeniy was already walking around, holding onto the walls. Moreover, severe pain in my legs appeared at night. The neurologist at the clinic continued to prescribe pills and rub Aertal cream for the patient. In July, Evgeniy visited different doctors at the clinic every 2-3 days.

“The doctor at the Bone Clinic told him that after such procedures he should already be running, and advised him to go to the neurological department of the Republican Hospital. We led him to the hospital by the arm. He himself could no longer walk; he was practically dying. At a paid consultation at the Republican Hospital, the doctor immediately told my husband that he did not have neurology.

Evgeniy went for examination. The patient was x-rayed and found to have multiple bone fractures. The diagnosis sounded scary - multiple myeloma, simply put, blood cancer. A week later, after Evgeniy ended up in intensive care, his kidneys failed. As doctors told relatives, he was on the verge of death. Kidney damage is one of the most severe complications of multiple myeloma. If the kidneys had failed at home, the patient might not have been saved. And if the correct diagnosis had been made earlier, then perhaps the kidneys would not have failed.

The doctors who examined Evgeniy Mekkiev did not want to comment on this case. And one of the doctors said that two weeks after Evgeny Mekkiev’s kidneys failed, she diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease.

- Interesting case. I clearly saw parkinsonian syndrome. Perhaps this is a manifestation of a toxic effect on brain cells. The bones disintegrated and poisoned the bones of the brain. Now I will tell students about this case,” she said.

The 76-year-old mother of Evgeniy Mekkiev still cannot recover from the death of her eldest son. For the first month, the elderly woman came to her son’s grave every day.

Without help

The Kemsky District Court heard the case of a surgeon whose fault a patient died. A 15-year-old boy was brought to the Kemi railway hospital after an accident. If there were medical indications that he had suffered an abdominal injury, the doctor did not conduct a full examination of his abdominal organs.

Meanwhile, the young man suffered a liver injury and ruptured it. The correct diagnosis was made only more than 4 hours after a significant deterioration in the patient’s health. The operation did not lead to a positive result, and the young man died in the hospital.

The court found the doctor guilty and sentenced him to 2 years probation with a probationary period of 2 years. The doctor must also pay the family of the deceased 100 thousand rubles in moral compensation.

“Why can’t you give birth?”

This happened in 2012. Tatyana Tyapkina will never forget those August days spent in the maternity hospital. On August 20, the woman’s blood pressure rose slightly, and the gynecologist sent her to the maternity hospital. And on August 23, Tatyana started having contractions.

“It happened in the morning, but I endured it until the evening,” says the woman. “Then the doctor examined me, they gave me some kind of injection - and the pain seemed to recede a little, but still did not go away. I suffered through the night, and in the morning I went to the doctors and said that I couldn’t stand it anymore. The interval between contractions was already 3-4 minutes, and there was less and less time left. But I was told to wait - the doctors had a shift change. Then they finally came to me and sent me to the delivery room to give birth.

All this time, Tatyana’s mother was next to her; she wanted to support her daughter. The woman recalls: her contractions lasted a very long time, she suffered from three o’clock in the afternoon until seven in the evening. Then the story with the shift change repeated itself, and Tatyana was given an injection again. It subsided the contractions, and she lay alone for more than an hour - none of the doctors or midwives approached her. At that moment, the woman became scared: she did not understand what was happening to her and how long it would last.

The boy was born almost immediately after the doctor and midwife finally appeared in the delivery room. Tatyana kept waiting for the child to scream, but she never heard anything. The maternity hospital staff began to fuss, kicked her mother out of the room and began looking for a resuscitator. For more than half an hour they tried to bring the baby back to life, but all attempts were in vain.

The woman cannot forgive the doctors for not being with her at the right time, and therefore her son, who was born completely healthy, suffocated. After the incident, Tatyana was immediately surrounded by attention: she was transferred to a separate ward and a psychologist was brought in. The woman just sighs: this would be attention to her - during childbirth.

What surprised the woman most of all was the doctors’ reaction: instead of admitting guilt or simply apologizing, they blamed Tatyana’s husband for the death of the child!

“They told me that the child smelled of something, which means he had an infection that my husband allegedly brought to me.” Like, during my pregnancy he went “to the left,” Tatyana recalls. “And because of this infection, the child was born dead.” That is, they also tried to quarrel with us all. This is just nonsense, my husband and I dreamed so much about a child, we were waiting for him so much... He immediately passed all the tests - of course, no infection was found in him. Then other strange things began. At first, doctors claimed that the child was not strangled. And then the documents indicated that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Although in the report that I received from the morgue, there is not a word about this. The cause of death was listed as asphyxia - lack of oxygen. They also found several burst blood vessels in my son’s head. Perhaps they burst at the moment when the midwife grabbed my leg and began to press, shouting: “Why can’t you give birth?..”. Later I read that the child dies 12 hours after the start of contractions. And I was in labor for 13 hours.

Lethal treatment

The Investigative Committee of Karelia has opened a criminal case against Petrozavodsk doctors who are accused of improper performance of their duties. According to Sledkom, in May last year, a resident of Petrozavodsk turned for help to one of the city clinics.

The local doctor found a spinal disease in him and prescribed treatment, including physical therapy, after which the man’s condition worsened.

He called an ambulance, but it did not go to him - over the phone the man was given recommendations on what to do and what medications to take. Then the unfortunate man again went to the clinic to see the local police officer and explained that he felt even worse. However, the doctor still did not cancel the prescribed treatment for him. On the same day, the man died of heart disease. Only four days passed between the day he turned to his local police officer and the day of his death. Investigators will have to find out whether the doctors are to blame for the incident and evaluate the actions of the doctors.

"Sit and wait for your child to die"

It all started like a common cold. On August 18, 5-month-old Miroslav developed a fever. To exclude the possibility of pneumonia, the child and mother were admitted to the hospital. They took pictures of the baby, no pneumonia was found, and Anna and the baby returned home. And at night little Miroslav started vomiting.

— We went to the hospital again, where they gave us an injection to prevent vomiting. Moreover, I told the doctors that my son is very afraid of injections, they need to slightly stretch the place where to give the injection. A month ago he was pumped out after vaccination: he began to choke. “Oh, what are you starting,” the doctors waved me off,” says Anna Chernousova. “As a result, the child again had a shock reaction to the injection.

According to my mother, in the future the doctors at the Segezha Central District Hospital did nothing but brush aside her worries and doubts. At 5 am, Miroslav felt even worse: he could not hold his head up, and the pupils in his eyes were running erratically.

— A neurologist came, looked at my child and said: “This is the third time in my life I’ve seen this. “This is an allergy to the medicine,” Anna recalls. “You need to get an allergy shot.” Even then, my child, who was afraid of injections, did not react at all.

All these two days that Anna lay in the Segezha hospital, her mother’s heart did not find peace. Mom asked to send them to Petrozavodsk.

“I told the head of the children’s department, Tatyana Pikaleva, several times to see that there was something wrong with my child. But she just said: “Why are you running after me, I have a heavy baby in the maternity ward. What is Petrozavodsk like? You're fine. Now we’ll put in an IV and that’s it.”

By that time, Miroslav had undergone a puncture to rule out meningitis. The baby was fed through a tube.

“In the evening of the second day he even came to his senses, he even smiled,” says Anna. “And then he stopped reacting altogether.” The manager came, shone a light in his eyes and said: “See, see, there is a light effect.” At this time, a nurse is sitting, looking at me and whispering to me: “To Petrozavodsk, to Petrozavodsk.” Then I burst into the staff room and screamed for my child to be urgently taken by ambulance to Petrozavodsk.

Three hours later, after the boy was brought to the Petrozavodsk infectious diseases hospital, he fell into a third-degree coma, the most severe coma. The child's lungs have failed, and now he breathes only with the help of a ventilator.

According to the parents, doubts that Miroslav did not have a tumor at all crept into them after a second conversation with the doctor who did the MRI. Alexey went to pick up the pictures to send them to federal clinics. The doctor said that the diagnosis of “tumor” did not correspond to the MRI data.

“When they told us that we had a tumor, we were shocked. Miroslav had an ultrasound at 1 month and at 3. It turns out that such a huge tumor formed in two days? Can cancer develop so quickly? I had an absolutely healthy child, he didn’t even cry. I slept peacefully at night, so perfect that every evening I thanked God for such a child. “I didn’t even think that children could be like that,” says Anna Chernousova.

The Chernousov family began to seek help from specialists in federal clinics in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The family began a real war with doctors and officials of the Ministry of Health.

“We ourselves came to the Ministry of Health and named 5 clinics where Miroslav’s images and tests should be sent. We were simply shocked by the attitude towards us at the Ministry of Health. We had to run around asking for our documents to be sent as soon as possible. “I drop into the office of the department specialist in organizing medical care and say that I won’t leave until she sends the documents to the clinics,” says Anna.

Afterwards, Miroslav was re-tested to detect tumor cells. The same oncologist, with a difference of 18 days, gives two different conclusions. When repeating the analysis, no tumor cells were found in the child!

The Karelian Ministry of Health is confident that Miroslav was treated according to all standards. And, according to officials, there is no reason to conduct an internal audit.

“Now my son has some movements, he is moving his leg. The latest study showed that the tumor has decreased slightly, the Chernousovs say. The family now has hope that their son will recover.

Incorrect operation

Maria Erkina has never been sick for as long as she can remember. I was in the hospital only when I gave birth to children - three times. Therefore, when in December of the year before last, almost on the eve of the New Year, her leg began to hurt, Maria at first did not pay any attention to it. There was no time for doctors, especially since she was a widow and the only breadwinner of three minor children. “I just stood up awkwardly, hence the pain,” the woman decided.

But the pain did not go away. On the contrary, she became stronger and stronger. Maria could no longer lie on the sofa; she had to move to the floor and fix her sore leg on a chair.

If you've ever had toothache, you'll understand what I mean, says Maria. - It's the same thing, only in the leg. Then I could no longer restrain myself, I screamed. I called an ambulance several times a day for three days. The doctors came one after another, injected me with painkillers and assured me that everything would pass now. One doctor behaved in a generally rude manner: I’m lying there, I can’t even speak because of the pain, and he almost shouts at me, saying, stop being a fool, get up, you’re faking it! Then, when I started collecting papers for the court, the ambulance told me that they had not recorded my calls. I wasn’t too lazy and took printouts of outgoing calls from my home phone for those three days. It shows when and how many times I dialed the emergency number.

In the end, a young nurse took pity on the suffering woman and sent her to the hospital with a false diagnosis of suspected appendicitis. Maria Erkina was taken to the Emergency Hospital. She spent several days in the neurological department - it is clear that they did not find any appendicitis in her, but at least they injected her with painkillers. Then she underwent computer diagnostics and was given an accurate diagnosis: a herniation of one of the vertebral discs. The head of the neurosurgical department of the emergency hospital explained to Maria that she had to agree to the operation, there was no other choice.

They promised me that after the operation I would drop by almost the next day,” Maria recalls.
The woman was operated on. Closer to the New Year, patients began to be discharged. Maria also wanted to spend the holiday with the children, so she asked to be discharged, although the pain in her leg did not go away. The main thing is that at least it became a little easier. The doctors promised that the pain would gradually go away.

Until the summer, Maria walked with a cane. Her children took her to see a doctor at the clinic; she was practically unable to walk alone. The doctors refused to go to her house; for some reason they believed that the woman was faking it. They say that after such an operation, patients “fly” within a week, but she still limps with a cane.

Maybe if they had done everything right for me, I would have “flyed,” says Maria, “but every month it got worse and worse. One day I was walking from the clinic and suddenly such unbearable pain came that I fell straight to the ground. Suddenly the police arrived, they thought I was drunk. They almost took me to the department, well, I had a certificate from the clinic with me.

Finally, Maria decided to contact a neurosurgeon at the republican hospital. He was surprised: more than six months had passed since the operation, and the pain had not gone away. He ordered a repeat computer examination for Maria. Having seen his results, the surgeon did not say anything, he only redirected the woman back to the emergency hospital with the words: “Let those who did this explain to you...” As it turned out, during Maria’s operation, the healthy L4-L5 was mistakenly removed instead of the diseased L5-S1 vertebra .

When Maria returned to the city hospital, it seemed to her that they had been waiting for her there for a long time. The doctors immediately admitted their mistake and suggested a repeat operation. The head of neurosurgery himself volunteered to do it.

The doctor told me: you have the right to file a complaint, we will punish the surgeon who made a mistake, but, you understand, anything can happen, he just touched another vertebra by accident,” the woman says. - Why didn’t they tell me about this before? The epicrisis said that I was healthy. And from the report of Ingosstrakh-M, where I applied to conduct an investigation, it becomes clear that I actually had the wrong vertebra removed.

Maria underwent a second operation. The pain is almost gone. But leg numbness and lameness remained. Now Maria cannot walk for a long time; she is forbidden to work while bending down. The woman does not comply with this requirement because she works as a cleaner. My eyes don't allow me to find another job. Maria is visually impaired.
“Recently, I stopped going to the clinic and turned to a paid doctor,” says the woman. - So he explained that a vertebral hernia is not a reason for surgery; this disease can be cured in a month with the help of injections and medications. And I went to court. I'm offended. I was a healthy woman, and now... And no one even apologized!

Plaster “a la Plisetskaya”

51-year-old Evgeniy Gelzin slipped and fell in a flower shop. He bought a bouquet for his wife - it was her birthday that day.

“He comes in, holds flowers in front of him, and he limps,” recalls Svetlana Gelzina. - And he says: “Can you imagine, I just tumbled like that, but the flowers are intact.”

The bruised area on his left leg hurt, and Evgeniy decided to go to the emergency room. He returned with a diagnosis of a ruptured Achilles tendon and a referral to the hospital. He went to the emergency hospital the next day. Evgeniy was immediately scheduled for surgery: the damaged tendon had to be stitched. By evening the patient was operated on.

Seeing her husband, Svetlana became worried:

“We arrive, and his leg is in plaster all the way to the groin. Huge heavy plaster! As my husband said, plaster “a la Plisetskaya”! He lay on an antediluvian bed, the spring sank almost to the floor. I hung like in a hammock in this bed. But after the operation, they should have put him on a shield.

Svetlana Gelzina was told that her husband would stay in the hospital for 10 days. But already on the second day, Evgeniy was unexpectedly discharged.

“I’m asking my husband on the phone what happened.” And he told me: “I don’t know what’s happening, it seems like there’s an emergency evacuation, everyone is being discharged!” But Zhenya was not even taught to walk on crutches.

They explained to Svetlana Gelzina that her husband did not require any treatment; he was an outpatient and could be treated at home. Evgeniy had to walk in a cast for eight weeks.

Two weeks later, Evgeniy Gelzin died. Suddenly and almost instantly, in front of my 19-year-old son. As stated in the medical documents, the cause of death was “pulmonary embolism due to acute deep vein thrombosis of the left lower extremity.” To put it simply, blood thickened in the patient’s casted leg and a blood clot formed, which broke off and blocked the pulmonary artery. The tragedy could have been foreseen and prevented.

The Ministry of Health conducted an internal investigation into the death of Gelzin. The dry lines of the report speak of errors, or, as they are called in the document, defects of the medical staff. Thus, the operating doctor, and subsequently the attending physician, “failed to comply with the requirements for the prevention of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism in the pre- and postoperative period.” Meanwhile, this prevention is prescribed not just anywhere, but in the order of the Ministry of Health, issued back in 2003. This order hangs in the resident's room of the trauma department!

It says in black and white: “Acute venous thrombosis develops in 30% of operated general surgical patients, in 70-80% after traumatological and orthopedic interventions.” How can a doctor not know this?!

But the worst thing is different. It is quite possible that Evgeniy Gelzin did not have any rupture of the Achilles tendon!

“The forensic expert’s report says that the tendon is unchanged,” Valery Khilkevich, first deputy of the investigation department of Petrozavodsk, told us. – A forensic expert, if he sees traces of ruptures or injuries, describes it in detail, but if not, he records the fact of absence.

– So there was no rupture of the Achilles tendon?

– According to preliminary data, yes.

If this fact is confirmed by the next examination, the scale of the medical error will be shocking. When performing an operation, it is impossible not to notice the absence of damage. To put a heavy cast on a healthy person... I can’t wrap my head around something like this!

The Karelian Ministry of Health commented on the conclusion of the forensic expert: the report does not contain an examination of the damaged tendon, which “does not allow us to assess the nature of the damage to the Achilles tendon and the consistency of the surgical suture.” It’s strange, because if there had been a seam, it could not have failed to attract the attention of a forensic expert.
The doctor who operated on Gelzin was reprimanded. He continues to work.

– I cry every day! Our sun is gone! We lived with him for 28 years, and I felt like a happy person! He won’t come home anymore, won’t shout: “Hello, hares!” – Svetlana Gelzina is inconsolable in her grief.

Unsuccessful birth

A 28-year-old young mother was admitted to the maternity hospital. Gutkin in Petrozavodsk on the night of March 2 at the 37th week of pregnancy with complaints of abdominal pain.

The next day, the obstetricians decided that it was necessary to induce labor. The doctors administered the necessary medicine, but it did not help. Then the obstetricians tried to deliver the baby using a vacuum extractor.

It was not possible to get the baby out right away. The vacuum nozzle was changed several times. Perhaps it was because of this that a scalped wound and numerous hematomas formed on the boy’s head. During the procedure, the baby's heartbeat slowed down. Then the doctors urgently changed the birth plan - they performed a caesarean section. Only then did doctors see that the boy was being held by an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, torso and legs. At that time, the child was no longer breathing. Resuscitators managed to save the baby’s life.

It is worth noting that in our country, vacuum extraction is used in 0.12 - 0.20% of all births. Modern medicine resorts to cesarean section if it is impossible to provoke the natural process of childbirth.

Today the child is in a coma. He cannot breathe on his own; he is connected to a ventilator. In addition, due to damage to the nervous system, the newborn has impaired muscle tone and lacks reflexes.

With a diagnosis of “severe perinatal damage to the central nervous system of mixed origin,” “convulsive syndrome,” “cephalohematomas of both parietal bones,” the child was transferred to the intensive care unit of the Republican Children's Hospital.

- As the doctors said, if your son comes to his senses, at most he will only be able to move his eyes. His brain is very damaged,” his father said. - Upon discharge from the maternity hospital. Gutkin, the head physician in a conversation with us asked for forgiveness. He said that there was a consultation, and the doctor might be disciplined.

The head doctor of the maternity hospital, Evgeniy Tuchin, said that he is constantly in touch with the parents and is very worried about what happened.

— A serious internal audit is currently underway. There is no need to talk about any negligence or mistake of doctors. We will check the actions of the staff minute by minute. Looking ahead a little, I will say that there are times when the umbilical cord itself plays an important role, but not in this particular case.

The Karelian Ministry of Health reported that they are monitoring the fate of the child, but it is too early to draw conclusions.

“It’s sad that the child was born with severe asphyxia. Children are plastic. And a miracle can happen,” commented Elena Kuzmicheva, head of the department for organizing medical care for women and children.

The parents submitted a statement to the Petrozavodsk prosecutor's office with a request to conduct an investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice. They also took the application to the Ministry of Health of Karelia for further investigation.

"Is this yours?"

On September 26, 2013, 23-year-old Jan Radziulis died after the doctor on duty at the Chikin Emergency Hospital was too lazy to examine him. According to the official version, the guy was found by a police patrol at night on the side of the road and reported to the ambulance. The ambulance took Ian to the hospital, and no one there helped him. The workers of the medical institution considered the man drunk and limited themselves to calling his mother and the police so that someone would save them from unnecessary work. When Jan's mother entered the emergency department, she saw her son lying on the tiled floor. He moaned, screamed, blood flowed from his nose, but not a single medical worker considered it his duty to approach him.

- Is this yours? – a woman in a white robe, who was in that room, turned to Jan’s mother.
That's what she said. In the neuter gender. About a person.

The police took the mother and son home and helped him get to his apartment. He wasn't getting any better. The guy was screaming, apparently in terrible pain. In the afternoon, my mother called an ambulance again. Ian was taken to the same hospital. And then it turned out that there were normal doctors there. One look into the pupils of the dying man was enough to understand that the matter was very serious. Tomography, resuscitation, the efforts of doctors, but it was too late - a young man who had been completely healthy yesterday died. Ian suffered a fracture of the base of the skull, a fracture of the right orbital plate of the frontal bone, a linear fracture of the squama of the occipital bone, a severe brain contusion and many other injuries. In addition, the forensic medical examination report stated that Ian was sober at the time of receiving these injuries. What happened at night? Why didn’t all the staff on duty at the city hospital pay attention to the unfortunate boy? Why does a woman – a medical worker – consider it possible to call her patient in the neuter gender?

“This is a very unpleasant situation,” said the head physician of the emergency hospital, Alexey Kheifets, at the time. – The neurosurgeon on duty showed criminal negligence. There will probably be a criminal trial. And, if this doctor is proven guilty, we will take measures up to and including a retaliatory lawsuit.

What do you mean? This means that if the relatives of the deceased file a claim against the hospital, the hospital will forward it to one specific unscrupulous doctor, Chikin. After all, the hospital is not to blame. What about other doctors? After all, Chikin wasn’t the only one on duty that night?

– But the neurosurgeon took him. The rest should not interfere,” explained the head physician.

- And the nurses? Well, all the health workers who see a person suffering from pain? After all, he doesn't even
tried to stop the bleeding. They didn't even pick him up from the floor. He still lay next to the stretcher.

– Nursing staff carries out the doctor’s orders. But there were no orders from him.
That is, it is not the hospital’s fault where doctors and nurses indifferently pass by a dying person. Not a system in which no one will approach you, blaming everything on one particular Chikin. Not the Ministry of Health, whose Ivan Ivanovich believes that failure to provide assistance to a suffering person is just a “defect” that is not worth serious punishment.

There are many examples of indifferent attitude towards people on the part of our healthcare system. But the Ivan Ivanovichs do not see a pattern in this, they do not even want to discuss it. They see one individual trauma surgeon, one individual neurosurgeon, one individual nurse. They call it the human factor, emphasizing that it “always was, is and will be.” And they don’t want to understand that the notorious “human factor” is themselves – soulless officials, indifferent to other people’s pain and suffering...

Wrong estimate

In November 2014, a Petrozavodsk resident went to the hospital with complaints of fever and pain in the hypochondrium. The attending physician made the diagnosis. Despite the procedures and prescribed treatment, the patient died after 8 days in the hospital.

The medical examination established that during the management of this patient, an incorrect assessment of his condition was given during ultrasound control, and therefore complications arose and the operation was performed untimely. The same examination established that the disease, which was not recognized by doctors in a timely manner, was not fatal and, if treated in a timely manner, would have resulted in recovery.

In court, the relatives demanded moral compensation from the hospital.

The court considered that the moral damage caused to the plaintiffs by moral experiences in connection with the loss of their father is subject to compensation under the provisions of civil law, since the loss of a loved one is an irreparable loss. The Emergency Hospital recovered compensation for moral damages in the amount of 800 thousand rubles in favor of each of the plaintiffs.

No punishment

An emergency hospital endoscopist who was accused of causing the death of his patient due to medical negligence has been found guilty. Let us remind you: according to the investigation, during one of the procedures, the doctor instructed the nurse to close the valve on the equipment to which the patient was connected.

It turned out that he did not like the unpleasant smell that came from the patient. This led to the fact that the woman simply could not exhale the air entering her. Her body began to swell in front of the hospital staff. The patient died soon after.

The deceased was in the hospital with an unknown diagnosis. What did the doctors not suspect about her? But they were ultimately unable to understand why the woman fell into a coma. It was repeatedly said in court that the patient most likely would not have been able to get out without the history of the valve. And that the woman’s attending physician, while carrying out resuscitation measures, after closing this unfortunate cap, did not take all the necessary measures to resuscitate the patient. But neither one nor the other could and was not taken into account in court. The conclusions of the examinations are clear: the woman died from barotrauma as a result of the closure of the valve on the endotracheal tube.

No matter how convincingly the endoscopist spoke before the court, proving that he could not give the order to close, and even for such, from his point of view, an absurd reason, the valve on someone else’s equipment, the judge did not believe him. He also did not believe the nurse, who also categorically denies that she closed the valve and that she received any instructions in this regard.

The judge did not find any aggravating circumstances against the doctor. He considered his good characteristics, lack of criminal record and his wife’s pregnancy as mitigating factors. As a result, as requested by the state prosecutor, the endoscopist was sentenced to a year of restriction of freedom. This means that he can continue to live the life of an ordinary person, only for twelve months he will not be able to change his place of work or place of residence without the consent of a specialized body, he must report monthly to the same body and not travel outside of Petrozavodsk. As the judge explained, he had no reason to deprive the doctor of his job, because he committed a crime of “minor” gravity.

Medical errors are the category of mistakes, the results of which people perceive most painfully. How can the loss of a human life be justified as a mistake? But precisely because we are all living people, sometimes such cases happen.

Medical errors in America alone lead to more than 250 thousand deaths annually, which is about 9.5% of total mortality.

1. You can’t forget everything to remember - put a comma

The most common medical error is surgical supplies forgotten and sewn inside the patient. Such an error, innocent at first glance, can lead to an absolutely disastrous outcome. Therefore, the operating room always maintains total control over all equipment, including every thread or napkin. But even with such control, there are cases of oversight and negligence of health workers. Thus, in Dopropolye, a twenty-centimeter clamp was forgotten inside a patient during an operation to remove the appendix. Before this thing was discovered and removed, the man lived with it for 5 years.

2. Sew it and forget it

Doctors from Moscow had a much worse result. A rather large napkin was accidentally sewn to the small intestine, which led to death immediately after the operation.

3. The doctor overdid it

Many mistakes happen due to inexperience. But how can you call the head of the surgical department from the Novosibirsk region inexperienced? While performing a simple operation to remove the appendix, he managed to cut the iliac artery, which immediately led to the death of the man from heavy bleeding.

4. Caught, but not a thief

A violent patient escaped from an Australian psychiatric hospital. The police immediately rushed to search. The caught patient was immediately taken back to the clinic in handcuffs. There, having dressed him in a straitjacket, which was more common for such places, the doctors heartily treated the fugitive with psychotropic drugs. And only after some time the poor fellow managed to emerge from his drugged state and explain to his tormentors that they had caught the wrong one. The victim was an absolutely healthy and completely stranger man. Everything ended well, if you don’t take into account the fact that the “psycho” spent some time under cleansing drips.

5. Dad can do anything

Dad may even, due to someone's mistake, not become a dad. This is exactly what happened in a New York artificial insemination clinic. Parents suspected something was wrong immediately after the birth of the child. The baby was absolutely different from her father, namely, unlike her parents, she was dark-skinned. As it turned out, as a result of an investigation and DNA test carried out at the clinic, the test tubes were simply mixed up with the biomaterial. As a result, the father of the long-awaited daughter became a complete stranger. If we do not take into account the moral and social aspect of the problem, we can say that everything also turned out more or less well.

6. The Toothpick Doctor

An incredible story happened to a British army soldier, 25-year-old Alison Diver. While their unit was in Germany, Alison broke her two front teeth. For unknown reasons, she turned not to a military dentist, but to an unfamiliar civilian doctor. Since local anesthesia did not work on her, she agreed to general anesthesia. Imagine Alison’s surprise when, after waking up, she did not find a doctor, but found a bag with all her teeth near her. The reasons that prompted the careless dentist to do such an act remained unknown. The young girl had to spend a lot of time and effort on complete oral prosthetics.

7. To the left is hay, to the right is straw

It would probably be a good idea for a surgeon in Tampa, Florida to use this simple rule. Having forgotten his basic knowledge, he managed to confuse and amputate 52-year-old patient Willie King's left leg instead of his right leg. The scandal could not be hushed up, and the clinic and the surgeon lost more than a million dollars, giving the money as compensation to the patient.

8. The doctor or the doctor needed an eye and an eye

As in the previous case, we will talk about elementary inattention. In 1892, a ten-year-old boy, Thomas Stewart, injured one of his eyes while playing with a knife, causing him to lose part of his vision. The doctor helped him become completely blind. Considering that the damaged eye needed to be removed, he mistakenly removed the boy’s absolutely healthy organ. We can only guess what kind of punishment doctors suffered for their mistakes more than a hundred years ago.

9. Radiation and treatment

A patient suffering from tongue cancer suffered even greater misfortune. Jerome Parks - that was the patient's name - for several days mistakenly received radiation aimed at other healthy organs, in particular the brain. The consequence of this was the complete loss of hearing and vision of the patient. The unbearable torment of the unfortunate man was alleviated only by death.

10. Disinfected patient

Also fatal was the mistake of nurse Virginia Mason. She, having inattentively read the inscription on the package, gave the patient an injection of a disinfectant solution. Mary McClinton, 69, did not survive such negligence.

11. Lungs instead of a stomach

As sad as it is, this case is also fatal. 79-year-old San Francisco patient Eugene Rigs suffered from a disease that prevented him from eating properly through the esophagus. They planned to administer food to him through a special probe, which was supposed to pass through the esophagus. But the probe was mistakenly inserted not into the esophagus, but into the trachea, that is, into the lungs. Not only was the probe already interfering with normal breathing, but food also began to flow into the lungs. The error was discovered fairly quickly. Eugene and the doctors tried to cope with removing the remaining foreign mass from the lungs for several more months. But he still lost this fight for life.

12. A nervous doctor is worse than a medical error.

36-year-old Nel Radonescu from Romania had to undergo a planned operation to correct testicular pathology. But Dr. Naum Chomu made his own adjustments to the operation. The doctor's hot temper played a cruel joke on him. Having accidentally touched the urethra during an operation, the doctor became so angry that he cut off the patient’s genital organ. The doctor was able to calm down only by cutting the organ into pieces. Predictably, this surgeon was forever deprived of his medical license through the court and was required to pay for the operation to restore the mutilated organ. In this case, part of the skin for the operation was taken from the hand of an unbalanced doctor.

13. Boy or girl – it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that the person is good

And finally, here are the most harmless medical errors. Each mother can probably tell several of them. These are classic mistakes when determining the sex of an unborn child using an ultrasound. Thus, one doctor promised a boy by showing a large “genital tubercle” on the screen (a definition probably understandable only to this doctor). Another, at 22 weeks of pregnancy, again on a computer monitor, clearly saw the scrotum and proudly showed it to his parents. As you can guess, in both cases girls were born. It would seem that the mistake was harmless, but it was precisely this kind of medical negligence that almost cost the lives of two Chinese citizens. Xianliang Shen, having just become the father of an unwanted daughter, beat his poor wife half to death and carried out an armed attack on the doctor who promised a son.

You can accept such excuses for medical errors as fatigue, inexperience, accidental circumstances, inattention and many other traits inherent in a living person. But no excuse will be so significant as to make up for the loss of health or relieve the pain of losing a loved one.

N.I. Pirogov published a 2-volume work: “Annals of the surgical department of the clinic of the Imperial University of Dorpat” - that is, “... reports on the operations performed for the year, regardless of the outcome.

They become new accounting documents of medicine, the statistical value of which is unusually high, since the author does not hide failures, and therefore the truth. They take into account the patients’ age, gender, temperament, and occupation. The statistical research method encourages Pirogov to look for any opportunity to increase the number of operations performed. Before Pirogov, 92 operations were performed at the university clinic in three years, with him during the same time - 326 . More than 4 wards with 20 beds passed through 1500 sick.

Based on documented patient histories, he developed a unique educational workshop for students and colleagues, showing himself to be a brilliant diagnostician, therapist, and surgeon in the analysis of each case. Pirogov abandoned the centuries-old tradition of publishing medical works in Latin and published the Annals in German, thereby making them accessible to the general public. He was the first to introduce the average reader to the creative laboratory of a surgeon. ( To be precise, a Dutch doctor also published his mistakes Herman Boerhaave– Approx. I.L. Vikentyev).

The main principle of Pirogov’s undertaking was to bring the work of doctors to public consideration; this is the only way to effectively fight for your ideas against false accusations and slander. This is how the reformer himself explains the purpose of publishing the Annals.

It is necessary to immerse the student in the atmosphere of real medicine with its everyday life and mistakes: "Paintings Raphael Not suitable for a beginner to imitate, he must first experience the everyday, the ordinary with its good and bad sides, he must make mistakes and make mistakes again before he can imitate the beautiful creations of famous masters of art and act in strict accordance with their principles.” […]

It is necessary to rebuild all medicine on the principles of community in the name of the patient:

“We live in an age when egoism and vanity flourish in science. The priority of discovery is now considered in the medical world to be almost more significant than the discovery itself. Thus, we should not be surprised that every day trust disappears more and more among doctors of all nations. Our sacred duty is to protect science from the dominance of petty passions.”

In the Annals one could find previously unheard of confessions: "Most my big mistake was that I did not puncture the cyst to confirm the diagnosis”; “Only one mistake was made, which I want to frankly admit.” “An amazing mistake in diagnosis. Death. “I do not have detailed statistical surveys to say with mathematical precision...; “a happy but uncertain outcome (when the operated patient left for another city and there is no information about his current condition)”. […]

Enlightened people from the Annals learned for the first time how difficult it is for doctors to diagnose cerebral hemorrhage. […] He explained to readers that so far no doctor is able to always accurately diagnose such injuries: “I have seen many experienced practitioners make mistakes in this regard, and I myself have been so often mistaken...” […]

Russian society was amazed by the news: medicine stopped deceiving, spoke in an understandable language and asked for help!

Not a single opponent of Pirogov could further oppose him without citing his own statistics. The ground for unfounded accusations was cut out from under the feet of the enemies with the publication of the Annals.

Interested in the works Pirogov and the ever-busy Russian government officials who run medical institutions and universities. The ministers had the opportunity, perhaps for the first time, to read books where a doctor condescended to explain his actions in the operating room to mere mortals.

The novelty and desperate courage of Pirogov’s act appealed to Russian radicals.”

Zakharov I.S., Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov: reforms and immortality, St. Petersburg, 2007, p. 46-50.

Pathologist Oleg Inozemtsev presented an overview of the most common causes of lethal iatrogenies

Sectional hall. Another ordinary autopsy. In front of me is a middle-aged man. Clinicians made a lifetime diagnosis of “Thrombosis of mesenteric vessels and intestinal necrosis.” But an examination of the abdominal cavity showed the presence of hemorrhagic pancreatic necrosis. And so a seemingly “ordinary” autopsy became an illustrative example of iatrogenicity in surgical practice. And many such examples accumulate during the career of a pathologist.

Our expert:

Oleg Inozemtsev

pathologist, 15 years of experience in the specialty. Part-time endoscopist and radiation diagnostician. Place of work: multidisciplinary hospital.

When the doctors are powerless and the patient dies, I begin my work as a pathologist. First at the dissecting table, then in the histology laboratory. In addition to establishing the exact cause of death of the patient, it is important for me to find out whether there is a discrepancy between the clinical and pathological diagnoses. If there is a discrepancy, every time I feel disappointed in the imperfection of medical science, in the illiteracy of my colleagues, and I think about their responsibility. Based on my own observations, I compiled my personal top list of the most common medical errors leading to the death of a patient, and provided illustration stories. Let's go from the most frequent to the least frequent.

1. Lightning situations

An example from personal experience: a young man of 20 years old fell ill with ARVI, which began with chills, fever, cough, and runny nose. Symptomatic treatment was started. But four days later the patient’s condition worsened sharply, and the diagnosis was “pneumonia.” The disease progressed rapidly, and the patient exited within 24 hours. A pathological autopsy confirmed the presence of pneumonia. Why did such a disease as banal pneumonia, which most often ends well, lead to a terrible ending?! The cause of iatrogenicity lies in the late diagnosis of the disease and its lightning-fast course.

The concept of “iatrogeny” was first proposed by the German psychiatrist Oswald Bumke in 1925. He proposed using this term to denote psychogenic diseases that arise as a result of a careless medical statement (from Greek: iatros - doctor, genes - generating, i.e. “disease generated by a doctor”). According to ICD-10, iatrogenics refers to any adverse or undesirable consequences of medical procedures (preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic interventions). This also includes complications of medical procedures that were the result of the actions of a medical worker, regardless of whether they were wrong or correct.

Note: The mere possibility of a lightning-fast course of the disease makes it necessary to begin treatment as early as possible and with appropriate doses of effective drugs.

2. Invasive techniques

A patient with suspected peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum was referred for fibrogastroduodenoscopy. During the procedure, a perforation of the posterior pharyngeal wall occurred. The defect was not immediately detected; phlegmon of the neck with deep intoxication developed, and the patient died. Another example: a patient has diverticulosis of the descending and sigmoid colon. A colonoscopy is scheduled. During its implementation, a rupture of the large intestine occurred in the area of ​​the rectosigmoid angle with heavy bleeding, and the patient died from blood loss.

Note: Patients should be referred to invasive diagnostic methods only according to strict indications, and endoscopic interventions and treatment procedures should be carried out with extreme caution under the control of video endoscopic technology.

3. Diseases from “medicines”

A 55-year-old man has been suffering from metabolic arthritis for a long time. He became acutely ill after taking a combined NSAID. Immediately a rash appeared on the skin, changes in blood tests (increased ESR and leukocytosis). Later, severe shortness of breath, pain in the chest and lumbar region appeared. The treatment did not give positive results. The condition progressively worsened, and the patient soon died. At autopsy, virtually no macroscopic changes were found. However, a histological examination of the internal organs revealed serous-productive inflammation with a predominance of lymphocytic and macrophage infiltrates, proliferative membranous glomerulonephritis, endocarditis, interstitial pneumonia and hepatitis.

Intolerance or hypersensitivity to certain medications and procedures (radiotherapy, x-ray therapy, anesthesia) is common. Drug intolerance reaches 10-20%, and 0.5-5% of patients require treatment for drug complications. Timely discontinuation of drugs allows you to avoid unforeseen serious complications, for example, anaphylactic shock or acute hemolysis. But if the doctor does not connect the severity of the patient’s condition with the use of the drug and does not cancel it, then a fatal outcome is possible.

Note: When prescribing any drug, you must remember that an undesirable reaction may develop. From personal experience, I recall severe ulceration of the gastric mucosa and fatal bleeding when taking NSAIDs. Cytostatics, glucocorticoids, tetracycline, caffeine, reserpine, etc. also have ulcerogenic properties.

You should especially beware of allergic reactions when taking antibiotics, sulfa drugs, non-narcotic analgesics, local anesthetics, antiepileptic drugs, iodine, arsenic, and mercury preparations. The consequences do not depend on the dose: even one tablet can lead to serious complications.

4. "Disguise"

There are cases that require a distinction between the concepts of medical error and medical misconduct. Let me give you an example. A patient is admitted with complaints of abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. The attending physician, and later the council, concluded: the patient had an exacerbation of chronic cholecystopancreatitis. Appropriate treatment was prescribed, but it did not produce positive results. The patient's condition worsened and he soon died. During a post-mortem autopsy, acute myocardial infarction was discovered. Obviously, there was an abdominal form of infarction without typical chest pain. What to do in this case: bring the doctor to criminal liability? Medical misconduct or medical error? In this case, we are, of course, talking about a medical error, since the disease had an atypical course.

Note: Clinicians should always remember that many diseases have similar symptoms and are “masked,” leading the doctor astray. Therefore, we never forget about differential diagnosis: by comparing several diseases with similar symptoms, we will arrive at the correct diagnosis.

5. Atypical story

In surgery, it sometimes happens that a properly performed surgical intervention leads to death. Example? It was described in 1983 in the book “Dialogue about Medicine” by Nathan Vladimirovich Elshtain. The patient's tonsils were removed. The operation is simple, performed frequently and usually has no consequences. But this patient started bleeding from the surgical wound. The fact is that the patient had an atypical location of a blood vessel, and this vessel was damaged during the intervention. Fortunately, the bleeding was stopped in time. But how could the surgeon have foreseen the presence of this anomaly?! This is a typical case of surgical iatrogenicity, which is difficult to predict. And in this case it is very difficult to explain to the patient’s relatives why and how a simple operation could lead to a tragic outcome.

Note: Surgeons should not forget that the human body is not ideal; organs and vessels may have an atypical arrangement. You can sometimes suspect and be prepared for “surprises” based on external anomalies (stigmas). For example, during any surgical intervention in a patient with Morphan syndrome with obvious external stigmata, rupture of the dissecting aortic aneurysm, which occurs in this syndrome, is possible. If in any doubt, it is better to be on the safe side by doing additional research (angiography, ultrasound, etc.).

6. A terrible thing - statistics

A 35-year-old patient was admitted to the hematology department of a hospital with enlarged lymph nodes in several areas of the body, enlargement of the liver and spleen. Cough and shortness of breath were also present. The CBC revealed anemia, and an X-ray examination revealed an area of ​​4x5 centimeters of darkening in the lung tissue and hemorrhagic effusion (punctate) in the pleural cavities. A smear was taken from the enlarged lymph nodes, in which Berezovsky-Sternberg cells and reticular cells were found. Based on these data, a diagnosis was made: lymphogranulomatosis. Treatment has been prescribed. Soon the patient died. A pathological autopsy revealed bronchial cancer with metastases to the lymph nodes and liver. The clinical and pathological diagnosis did not coincide due to incorrect diagnosis and treatment.

This curious case of iatrogenic “from the word”, which ended in the death of the patient, occurred in my practice. The woman had chronic ischemic heart disease. This naturally bothered her both physically and psychologically. And in order to somehow reassure his patient, the attending physician “encouraged” the patient, telling her that everything would be fine and that she would not die before him. A fatal accident led to the attending doctor dying the next day from intracerebral hemorrhage. And the patient, having learned about his death, died a few days later from a myocardial infarction.

What caused the diagnostic error? Doctors know that lung cancer is rare in young women, about 5-6 times less common than in men. This fact “weeded out” the hypothesis of lung cancer. Then, a sharp and widespread enlargement of the lymph nodes raised suspicion of lymphogranulomatosis. Clinicians also misinterpreted the hemorrhagic nature of the effusion, which indicated lung cancer, and incorrectly interpreted the cytological data from the lymph nodes. It was necessary to take a biopsy from the lymph node for histological diagnosis, which was not carried out. In this case, a correct diagnosis would hardly be able to contribute to recovery, but the fact of iatrogenicity is present.

Note: a propaedeutics teacher told us medical students: “If you think about statistics, you will never make the correct diagnosis.” He was damn right. In addition, if a diagnostic standard has been developed for a certain condition, follow it.

For the sake of a common cause

The job of pathologists is not to convict the attending physician of mistakes made, not his moral defeat (sometimes even material), but to help the doctor learn from the mistakes made. Every time I conduct an analysis, as well as inviting doctors to perform autopsies, I hope that these difficult “training” events will delay the next case of iatrogenic death.

When you go to doctors, you hope that they won’t make a mistake. Meanwhile, these are the most ordinary people who, like everyone else, make mistakes in their work. But the consequences are quite terrible and their price is much higher. A person may ultimately lose his health, or even his life.

Amputation of a healthy limb? Introduction of a foreign drug instead of a medicine? These are not horror stories and gossip at all, but real cases.

In medical practice, things happen that you might not immediately believe. At the same time, even the most highly qualified specialists in expensive and advanced clinics make mistakes. Let's talk about the most terrible medical errors.

Another leg. Few people can imagine that an experienced doctor would suddenly confuse left and right. But this is exactly what happened to a surgeon from Tampa, Florida. In 1995, during an operation he had to amputate the right leg of his 52-year-old patient Willie King. When he woke up after anesthesia, he discovered that his sore limb was in place, but his left one was missing! They tried to console the patient with the fact that she, too, was unwell and would eventually be amputated anyway. King sued the hospital, won the case and received 900 thousand dollars in compensation from the clinic itself and 250 thousand from the inattentive doctor. In addition, the surgeon was deprived of his license for six months.

Wrong eye. This terrible doctor's mistake happened 120 years ago. In 1892, 10-year-old Thomas Stewart lost an eye in an accident. The boy accidentally stumbled upon a knife, which caused partial loss of vision. Doctor Alexander Proudfoot was called to help and quickly decided that the damaged eye needed to be urgently removed. Upon completion of this operation, the surgeon suddenly discovered that instead of a diseased eye, he had removed a healthy one.

Incorrect exposure. Radiation should not necessarily be considered harmful. Of course, it often harms health, leading to death. However, medicine also uses radiation to treat cancer. But like any other medicine, it must be used extremely carefully and in the right doses. Patient Jerome Parks was unlucky with radiation. He was diagnosed with tongue cancer, but the computer gave the wrong direction for radiation. As a result, the patient's healthy neck and brain stem were irradiated. The “treatment” lasted three days. As a result, the patient quickly lost his vision, hearing, and ability to swallow. When the mistake was discovered, no one could save Jerome, and he soon died.

Disinfectant instead of medicine. This story is another reason to read the inscriptions on medicine labels. At one Virginia Mason medical center, this rule was not followed as often as it was followed. As a result, patient Mary McClinton was injected not with medicine, but with a disinfectant for medical instruments. This caused the death of a 69-year-old woman, and the hospital became much stricter about the designation and sorting of medications.

Forgotten napkin. Stories of things forgotten in the womb of a patient, unfortunately, are not so rare for doctors. In 2007, Indian woman Sabnam Praveen experienced a joyful event - her son was born. The child was born as a result of caesarean section. However, the joy did not last long; the woman soon felt unwell. Sabnam began to complain of abdominal pain. Doctors for three whole years could not understand the cause of the patient’s illness. Eventually she ended up on the operating table at the Chattisgarh Institute of Medicine. It turned out that the surgeon who delivered the baby was very inattentive - he forgot a napkin in the patient’s stomach. It remains unclear in history whether the poor woman received any financial compensation. But Donald Church managed to earn 97 thousand dollars from the doctors’ mistake. A similar story happened to him. When he was operated on in 2000 at the Washington Medical Center, a 31-centimeter long surgical instrument was “forgotten” in his abdomen.

Food in the lungs. An elderly 79-year-old patient at a San Francisco clinic, Eugene Rigs, suffered from diverticular disease. He could not even imagine that he would die in hospital not because of this disease, but because of the monstrous negligence of the doctors. Eugene's illness prevented him from eating enough naturally. Doctors decided that food could be delivered to the patient’s stomach through a special tube. However, it was entered incorrectly. As a result, food began to flow not into the patient’s stomach, but into his lungs. The error was quickly discovered, but it was impossible to correct the consequences. A few months later, Rigs died due to complications. His wife sued the government, because according to US law, claims cannot be brought against hospitals and military doctors.

Wrong father. A married couple, Thomas and Nancy Andrews, could not conceive a second child naturally for a long time. That's why they turned to the Center for Reproductive Medicine in New York. There, the couple was offered IVF, in vitro fertilization, which involves artificial conception in a test tube. Soon the long-awaited pregnancy really came. The couple were in seventh heaven. But when the child was born, the parents were quite surprised. The girl, named Jessica, had much darker skin and hair than her father and mother. It turned out that this phenomenon was not a whim of nature at all, but a mistake by doctors. This was confirmed by a DNA test, which showed that Thomas Andrews was not the biological father of the child, but some other man. His sperm was mistakenly used for artificial insemination.

Evil doctor. There is plenty of evidence that it is better not to anger doctors. Romanian Nel Radonescu was unlucky; he had to deal with a nervous doctor. A 36-year-old man was sent for surgery to correct abnormal testicular structure. And due to a medical error, he was left without a penis altogether. At the same time, Dr. Naum Chomu did not confuse the penis with the testicles. It’s just that during the operation he accidentally touched the patient’s urethra, which drove him crazy. In a rage, the doctor cut off his patient's penis, and also cut it into small pieces. The unfortunate patient was forced to sue. The authorities decided to oblige Choma to pay for the patient’s operation to restore his penis using skin from his arm. In addition, the nervous doctor was deprived of his medical license and paid for the moral damages of his injured patient.