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A woman is suing Yale New Haven Hospital after surgeons allegedly removed the wrong body part during an operation and tried to cover it up.
60-year-old Deborah Craven went in to have surgery to remove part of her eighth rib last year after doctors discovered a precancerous lesion.
According to the complaint filed in Connecticut Superior Court, however, the surgeons mistakenly removed her seventh rib instead.
"We recognized that an error was made, we informed and apologized to the patient, and we immediately reported it to the Connecticut Department of Health," a statement Yale issued in response to Craven’s allegations read.
Craven claims she never even got an apology from the surgeon or the hospital; she thinks they tried to cover everything up.
Joel Faxon, Craven’s lawyer, says the whole mistake came to light when his client began experiencing pain following the initial surgery.
After an x-ray was performed, Dr. Anthony Kim, an assistant professor of surgery at Yale, explained to Craven that her seventh rib had actually been removed.
But just five minutes later, Dr. Ricardo Quarrie reportedly came into the room and told Craven and her husband a completely different story.
According to the complaint, Quarrie told the couple that the surgeons "had not removed enough rib during the surgery and, for that reason, she would need to undergo another surgery."
Craven wasn’t buying the excuse, and she was stunned that her doctors would rather lie about what happened than own up to the mistake.
"Making the patient undergo another surgery the same day, without owning up to the real medical reason for the repeat surgery is just plain deceitful," Faxon wrote in a press release.
While Quarrie has refused to comment on the alleged incident, Yale said in its statement that the hospital is "committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible. However, even in the best organizations medical errors may occur. When they do, our goal is to acknowledge them, learn from them, and ensure that we minimize any chance that they ever occur again."
