When Dr. Shawn Goodman came out of the operating room at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland last Wednesday, she had some rather disturbing news for the family of 4-year-old Jesse Matlock of Vancouver, Wash. It seemed that she had had a bit of trouble picking exactly which body part she had been supposed to operate on.The boy’s parents had brought him in for surgery to correct his wandering right eye. Unfortunately, “something went wrong with their checklist” and Goodman apparently operated on the kid’s left eye by mistake, then, realizing what she’d done, went ahead with the right-eye surgery as well.Now Jesse’s mother Tasha Gaul says her son’s right eye is still wandering, and, since the surgery, his left one has started to wander too.Jesse Matlock had both eyes operated on, instead of just one. KTAU reports that Gaul has hired a lawyer for a possible malpractice lawsuit. She says she was in shock when the doctor told her what had happened.”My husband and I were in awe, we were like, ‘Can you repeat that again?”‘ said the boy’s mother, Tasha Gaul, recounting the moment they were told of the news. “She said, ‘Frankly, I lost sense of direction and didn’t realize I had operated on the wrong eye until I was done operating on the eye.'”Supposedly Jesse’s eye–the one that was supposed to be operated on–had been circled before the operation, but Dr. Goodman somehow missed or ignored the marking. Obviously everyone makes mistakes, but mistakes of this kind aren’t always called “mistakes,” but rather “malpractice.”Follow The Daily Weekly on Facebook and Twitter.
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