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Five medical blunders as bad as the rapping, dancing surgeon

From left behind tools to removing the wrong body parts to walking out in the middle of an operation; here are some gruesome examples of medical malpractice and mishaps

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Medical blunders range from removing or implanting the wrong body part to clumsy procedures to people imitating surgeons. Photo: Alamy
John Carney

Having any surgical procedure is no laughing matter, but when the doctor involved isn’t up to scratch it can only end in tears.

This was the case for Icilma Cornelius who was weeks away from her wedding in 2016 when she visited cosmetic surgeon Windell Davis Boutte’s practice in Atlanta, Georgia in the US, to have some minor surgery done.

But due to alleged malpractice during the surgery Cornelius suffered “a severe and debilitating catastrophic brain injury,” and today relies on a feeding tube and round-the-clock care.

To make matters worse, The Washington Post reports that in the subsequent lawsuit against Dr Boutte, details emerged of about two dozen videos filmed and posted to the clinic’s YouTube channel, which showed the doctor dancing, rapping and gesturing over her patients’ naked bodies, apparently during their procedures.

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Here are five other examples of shoddy work by the medical profession.

Occasionally implements and dressings are accidentally left in patients’ bodies after operations. One poor German had 16 items in him after a cancer operation. Photo: Alamy
Occasionally implements and dressings are accidentally left in patients’ bodies after operations. One poor German had 16 items in him after a cancer operation. Photo: Alamy
Surgeons leave 16 items in German cancer patient’s body
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German media reported that surgeons left 16 medical items in a cancer patient’s body during an operation in 2009. Dirk Schroeder reportedly had successful routine surgery for prostate cancer only to suffer “appalling agony” after it.

According to the German-language newspaper Bild, surgeons operated on Schroeder once again and were shocked to find 16 pieces of medical equipment in his body. The Daily Mail reported that the items included “a needle, a six-inch roll of bandage, a six-inch long compress, several swabs and a fragment of surgical mask.”

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