Connecticut Vet Stephen Tobin Fails to Appropriately Tie Off Uterine Arteries in a Spay Patient; Patient Later Dies After Losing Significant Blood

This is yet another botched spay case.

In July of 2003 The Connecticut Veterinary Board issued Findings of Fact in a complaint against veterinarian Stephen Tobin.

In 2001, Tobin performed a spay on "H.S.", a West Highland White Terrier. The Board Findings of Fact state:

" . . . [Tobin] failed to secure the uterine stump with the necessary two ligatures. The only ligature that was used became loose shortly after the surgery. H.S. lost a significant amount of blood through the uterine stump and the pedical that was left after the mass was removed."

When Tobin released H.S. to her owner, she was "unresponsive." 15 to 20 minutes after arriving home, she stopped breathing, and was oozing blood through the incision. Her owner rushed her to another vets, but she was dead on arrival, her death attributed to abdominal bleeding.

The Board found that Tobin's conduct was "negligent, unskillful, and showed poor judgment."

The Board fined Tobin $1,000 and put his license on a 2-year probation, requiring himn to attend classes in anesthesia and surgery.

Links:

http://www.dir.ct.gov/dph/hcquality/Physician/047-VETERINARIAN/047-001935/20010919047027.pdf

The Spay that Wasn't a Spay: Was He High???

The North Dakota owner of a young female Cairn Terrier named Ruby brought Ruby to Doc's Veterinary Clinic in Bismarck, North Dakota to see owner Tim Dockter for a spay. Ruby actually went through the surgery -- presumably involving the usual incisions and cuts, anesthesia, etc. Recalling that day, the owner said: "[Ruby] had an incision site with stitches on her lower abdomen . . . "

Three months later, Ruby's owner must have had quite a fright, when she saw that Ruby was bleeding ("spotted blood on my bedspread"), "had swollen genitalia and was licking herself."

In her complaint, the owner wrote:

"She had all the signs of being in heat but I had had her spayed at Doc's . . . "

So, she thought the problem must be something else, like a bladder infection. She took Ruby to another clinic (NOT Dockter's), who found that she was running a fever, so they put Ruby on antibiotics. But Ruby still bled, so her owner took her back to the clinic for another visit. Neither an ultrasound nor bloodwork showed anything abnormal. About a month later, when Ruby was no longer bleeding, her owner took her back in to the clinic and had blood taken. "The second blood test," the owner said, "did reveal high levels of progesterone indicating she was ovulating so a surgery was scheduled."

In February 2007, four months after "Dockter" had performed surgery on Ruby, Ruby underwent yet another spay. When the new vet performed this surgery he "found two ovaries and her uterus." The owner saved the ovaries and uterus, presumably as proof.

The owner notified Dockter when it was suspected that Ruby had gone into heat, and according to her account, a series of phone calls between her and Dockter ensued, in which, she said, he expressed concerned about being sued and asked her to "keep this between him and I . . . " She said: "I did not appreciate the harrassment and am completely disgusted that my dog had to go through this."

In his response to her complaint, Dockter denied the tone of the conversation as reported by Ruby's owner, saying that "She . . . informed me she was having Ruby looked at a different, undisclosed clinic. The conversation was very civil with no accusations or argumentative language."

Well, that's a case of he-said, she-said, but given his focus on the "undisclosed" nature of the other clinic, I have to wonder what he would have done if Ruby's owner would have "disclosed" the name of this other clinic.

Dockter reported that when Ruby's owner called him to report that ovaries and a uterus had been found inside Ruby, he said that he "did not know how this could have happened."

Later in the document, he offers what might be construed as two possible explanations:

He says he once heard of a dog that had TWO reproductive tracts.

He then said, "When I am in surgery I have on a phone headset ad I will take calls. Did I take a phone call from my children that was serious? Or did I have to break up a dog fight in my waiting room?"

HELLO???? In the middle of surgery this guy stops to talk to his children and break up dog fights in his waiting room? WTF???????

The Board decided to initiate a disciplinary action based on the complaint filed in the case of Ruby. Also, they noted, that they "decided to initiate disciplinary action on the information received by he Board alleging that Dockter was convicted of possession of marijuana and denied the conviction on an application for renewal."

They noted that Dockter did not admit to these violations.

They suspended his license for just one month, and then put his license on probaton for 4 years. They also said that he should not perform surgery for 5 months after returning to work. They fined him $3,000.

Hey, I know what might have happened that Dockter spaced out and didn't remove Ruby's ovaries and uterus. Maybe he stopped in the middle of surgery to go toke on a bong. After all, he stops in the middle of surgery for all kinds of other things.

More Spay Deaths -- Texas Vet Stanley Wolfe

In 2005, the Texas Veterinary Board adopted findings of fact in a case against Texas Veterinarian Stanley Wolfe, which included the following:

"On August 19, 2003, [an owner] of Wylie, Texas presentd the patient, his two and a half year-old pregnancy cat, "Itty Bitty Kitty," to the Parker Road Veterinary Clinic in Wylie, Texas for an ovariohysterectomy . . . [Wolfe] performed the surgery on the patient."

". . . During surgery, [Wolfe] placed several gauze pads in the incision to keep the intestine in the peritoneal cavity during exteriorization of the uterus."

"During the surgery, life-threatening complications arose, including a drop in oxygen saturation, apnea, hemorrhaging, a drop in body temperature, and severe bradycardia. [Wolfe] closed the incision, and the patient was placed on an electric heating pad following surgery."

"The patient died around 6:00 p.m., four to five hours after the surgical procedure ."

[OK, here comes the rub:]

"During and following surgery, [Wolfe] failed to catheterize the patient, to provide intravenous fluid therapy, or to provide any other method of delivering fluids to the patient. Such fluid therapy was essential to maintain the patient's blood pressure and to prevent shock when the hemorraging occurred."

Wolfe's "records do not mention catheterization attempts and do not state the reasons for [his] failure to initiate fluid therapy during or after surgery."

Wolfe "left two gauze pads in the area of the patient's left kidney and ovary."

The outcome of this shocking tale is that the Texas Board issued a "formal reprimand" to Wolfe and fined him $1,000. Is that enough?

Poor itty bitty kitty. R.I.P.

"Negligence" in Nevada

Nevada vet Lisa Hayden, DVM, had the dubious distinction of having a complaint filed on her by a member of the Veterinary Board in 2005. The following were among the "stipulated facts and conclusions of law" in the Vet Board's findings:

"Dr. Hayden failed to perform a spay on a dog within the standard of practice of veterinary medicine by ligating both ureters resulting in kidney failure. That conduct is a violation of NRS 638.140 (6), negligence . . . There is no physical examination information prior to the administration of anesthesia or vaccinations."

OK, so I had to look up some of these terms in case you were wondering: the ureter is the tube that takes the urine from the kidney to the bladder. To ligate means to tie. So, if both your ureters are tied off . . .

The findings say that this caused the dog to have kidney failure. Like many Board findings, it does not say whether the dog died, but what do you think? If you search the net for "ligate both ureters" the first things you will see are terminal surgeries on rats. If you make it to page 2 of the Google results, you will find the book, "Practical Gynecology: A Text-Book for Students and Physicians" which tells us: "The most serious injury of the ureter consists in the application of a ligature upon it or upon the tissue about it so that it is laterally compressed. Ligation of both ureters is, without question, fatal . . . "

Then I performed another Google search which yielded some interesting information:

One Lisa Hayden, DVM, is on the Board of Directors for a Nevada Non-Profit called "The Silver Springs Spay-Neuter Project." The stated mission of this non-profit is:

"Building the shelter of tomorrow with aggressive spay-neuter today."

Assuming this is the same Lisa Hayden, DVM, I would say she gives a whole different meaning to the term "aggressive spay."

Hayden was placed on probation for a year, fined $500, and ordered to work 16 hours a month with a "collaborative" veterinarian.