Medical Mixups Occur In Idaho Too, Patient Finds

The patient lay sedated on the operating table, halfway through surgery on both eyes, when his doctor asked, “How are you feeling, Richard?”

Unfortunately, the patient wasn’t Richard. It was Randy - Randy Smith of Boise. “I just figured he got the names confused,” Smith said. “Plus, I was doing pretty good on the Valium.”

But when Smith’s vision failed to improve days after his radial keratotomy surgery, the Boise man learned the confusion was more serious: The doctor had mixed up two patients’ charts and performed Richard’s radial keratotomy surgery on Randy.

In recent weeks, medical mixups involving drugs and surgery have grabbed headlines nationwide.

Patients have no way of knowing exactly how many mistakes happen.

Records are public only when the board takes formal action against a physician. Only one doctor practicing in Idaho was formally disciplined last year. Information about informal actions, like requiring a doctor to go through drug rehabilitation, is off limits to the public.

The federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank stores information on doctors - from disciplinary actions to malpractice settlements. But it is available only to hospitals, insurers, medical boards and doctors.

The American Medical Association urges the public not to get too worked up.

“The thing to put in perspective with these kinds of mistakes - which are indefensible - is that every day there are 9 million interactions between patients and physicians, and 99.9 percent of those are successful,” said Kirk Johnson, general counsel for the American Medical Association.

Radial keratotomy is an increasingly popular surgery that promises the bespectacled a life without eyeglasses or contact lenses.

Because no lawsuit has been filed in this case, the name of the doctor and the clinic are withheld from this story. Smith hopes to work out a settlement.

Smith and his wife learned the bad news about his eyes after complaining to the doctor several days after surgery. The doctor called the couple to his office and then admitted the error.

Smith needed four surgical incisions in each eye to correct his vision. Richard needed eight.

The doctor who performed the surgery returned his $3,000 fee, but that’s not enough, Smith said.

Smith, who was near-sighted, now is far-sighted.

Smith’s case may never make it into court. Kevin Marchand’s did. It became one of the most infamous medical malpractice cases in Idaho.

In 1987, when Marchand, then 30 years old, was crushed between a train car and a tractor at the Amalgamated Sugar Co. plant in Nampa.

Marchand, married and the father of a 2-year-old girl, was rushed by ambulance to Mercy Medical Center in Nampa, the closest hospital that could handle his injuries. He wanted to be taken to Boise instead.

Once at the hospital, a surgeon, radiologist and emergency-room doctor failed to diagnose Marchand’s fractured spine, a jury later decided. As a result, he was paralyzed from the waist down.

In 1991, a jury awarded Marchand $4.2 million. His lawyer took a big chunk of it, but Marchand has enough money to live comfortably.