Perforated Bowel During Tummy Tuck Surgery:
$2 Million Settlement
2024 Medical Malpractice Case Report
By Attorney Willliam J. Thompson
Suffolk Superior Court, Boston, Massachusetts
Lawsuit claims plastic surgeon was negligent when he perforated patient's bowel during liposuction
In September 2017, the plaintiff underwent elective plastic surgery (tummy tuck) which involved liposuction of her back and posterior flanks, her abdomen, and her medial thighs. When performing liposuction of the abdomen, the defendant noted he found a discreet, mobile, soft subcutaneous “lipoma” in the right lower abdomen and made attempts to liposuction the presumed lipoma with little effect. At risk of creating a bad contour irregularity he decided to stop. The surgery started at 8:10 a.m. and ended at 10:45 a.m. At 11:10 a.m., she was admitted to the PACU. She had complaints of nausea for which she was given four mg Zofran and then discharged at 12:45 p.m.
In the afternoon, she had 10 out of 10 pain, despite taking her Oxycodone and Tylenol, and she had vomited. The surgeon instructed her to take Zofran followed by Celebrex, and to wait one hour and take Oxycodone at 5:00 p.m. She did so without relief.
Her pain persisted and progressed throughout the week and she made multiple additional calls to the surgeon and his office to inform him of her ongoing pain despite narcotic usage as directed in the discharge instructions.
Five days later, she went to the hospital with 10 out of 10 abdominal pain. An abdominal CT scan demonstrated massive amounts of air in the anterior abdominal wall, bilateral flanks, and back, tracking all the way up into the torso and neck, and associated with bilateral pneumothoraxes and pneumomediastinum. She was taken to the OR and underwent emergent exploratory laparotomy, ileal resection, chest tube placement, abdominal debridement, washout and Vac placement. The surgeon noted a loop of ileum was pulled up between the anterior fascia and rectus muscles with a small hole in the anterior fascia to the right of the midline below the umbilicus. The knuckle of bowel (segment of ileum) protruding through the fascial defect was grossly inflamed and had two large full thickness perforations which were leaking large amounts of air and stool.
During her hospitalization, she underwent an additional eleven surgeries for irrigation and debridement, drainage, and dressing changes.
The plaintiff claimed the defendant was negligent when he mistook part of her bowel for a lipoma and attempted to remove it with liposuction resulting in a perforation of the bowel and leakage into the abdominal cavity.
The case settled prior to trial for $2,000,000.
Lubin & Meyer attorneys Andrew C. Meyer and William J. Thompson represented the plaintiff in this medical malpractice lawsuit.
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