Globe Spotlight Team report: Should surgeons perform two operations at once?
The Boston Globe reports that some staffers at Massachusetts General Hospital, including a former star surgeon, are at odds with hospital leadership over the practice of “concurrent surgery,’’ in which individual surgeons begin a second operation while their first is still ongoing — often without the patients’ knowledge. Hospital officials contend the practice is mainstream and safe for patients.
As part of their Globe Spotlight Team report, which includes an 11-minute documentary, the Globe found that a small group of anesthesiologists and other Mass. General staffers are arguing against what they see as a “substandard’’ practice incentivized by money.
“There are those in our profession who have been co-opted by the balance sheet,’’ wrote Dr. Dennis Burke, a leader in the battle against double-booking, in an email to a colleague.
Mass. General representatives told the Globe they haven’t found a single case where the practice has caused harm.
“Our hospital is being crucified for something that happens at hospitals across the globe,’’ said Dr. Kirkham Wood, the former chief of Mass. General’s orthopaedic spine service and the defendant in three concurrency-related malpractice lawsuits. “Everyone in America has done it at some time.’’
The Globe also obtained a series of internal emails from hospital staff who challenged top Mass. General officials on the practice and its motives. Hospital leadership told the Globe the emails portray an incomplete view of the internal debate; they denied many asserations in the emails and questioned the motives of some critics.
Read the Globe’s full feature report, as well as the complete Spotlight project on the double-booking of surgeries. Patients and providers are encouraged to share their stories here.
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