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To stay out of court, don’t make the same mistake twice!
By Lauren | July 21, 2009
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported yesterday that a lawsuit has been filed against dentist Wesley Meyers by the relatives of one of his patients, Charles K. Gaal, Jr. According to the Sentinel, in October of 2006 Dr. Meyers accidentally dropped an “implant screwdriver tool” down Mr. Gaal’s throat. Dr. Meyers’ mistake made it necessary for Mr. Gaal to undergo a colonoscopy to have the screwdriver removed. No fun at all.
Dr. Meyers must have done something right, though, because Mr. Gaal apparently kept going to him for dental work. On May 1, 2007, Dr. Meyers allegedly dropped a “mini-wrench” into Mr. Gaal’s throat. Mr. Gaal reportedly underwent multiple medical procedures, during which the wrench was spotted in his left lung. His chest cavity was cracked open and part of his lung was removed so the tool could be extracted. The lawsuit claims that Mr. Gaal never fully recovered, and died a few weeks later.
We’re all human, including dentists, and mistakes happen. But when a mistake injures someone (and yes, putting a patient through an otherwise unnecessary colonoscopy probably counts as an injury), it’s important to take steps to keep the same thing from happening again. The Sentinel reports that the state fined Dr. Meyers $17,000 and, in a settlement, found Meyers negligent for dropping the tools into Mr. Gaal’s throat on both occasions. Interestingly, however, the lawsuit reportedly accuses Dr. Meyers of failing to take precautions to guard against dropping his tools, as well as failing to handle his tools properly, but only in the second incident. That suggests that, if Dr. Meyers had put procedures in place to reduce his risk of dropping his tools after he dropped the first screwdriver, the lawsuit might never have been filed.
There’s a lesson here: not all mistakes lead to lawsuits, but your risk of being sued increases dramatically if you don’t learn and do better next time.
To read the South Florida Sun Sentinel story, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-odd-tool-dropping-dentist,0,3737261.story.
Topics: Apologies, Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, Risk Management, customer relations, ethics |