A surgeon is under scrutiny for allegedly permitting his 13-year-old daughter to drill a hole into a patient’s skull during an emergency procedure.
On January 13, a man involved in a forestry accident was urgently transported to Graz University Hospital in Austria via air ambulance.
Upon arrival, the patient was taken into emergency surgery around 2:45 PM. Reports suggest the procedure on his skull was not performed by a medical professional but by the neurosurgeon’s teenage daughter.
Surgeons may opt to drill a hole in a patient’s skull for various reasons.
When a head injury or trauma causes fluid or blood to accumulate in the brain, leading to pressure on brain tissue, drilling a hole can help drain the fluid and relieve the pressure. This technique might also be used if a foreign object is lodged in the skull.
The specific reason for the patient’s emergency surgery has not been disclosed. Although the incident occurred in January, it was only on April 26, when an anonymous complaint was submitted to Graz’s prosecutor’s office, that an investigation commenced, according to local media outlet Kronen Zeitung.
On May 25, the doctors involved in the procedure – identified by Sky News as the neurosurgeon and another employee – were dismissed without notice.
It wasn’t until July 8, two months later, that the patient became aware of the incident, reportedly learning about it from media coverage, as he could not recall the event himself.
The patient survived the surgery but was in intensive care for the next 11 days and remains unable to work, reports Kronen Zeitung.
Peter Freiberger, the patient’s lawyer, is now pursuing damages.
Freiberger stated: “You lie there. Unwilling, unconscious, and become guinea pigs. There’s probably no other way to put it… that’s not possible. You can’t do that.”
He added, “There was no contact, no explanation or apology, nothing. That is simply undignified.”
Trauma surgery specialist Manfred Bogner told Sky News that ‘a child’ should never be ‘given a drill and allowed to drill away at the bone of a seriously injured person,’ expressing his disbelief that such an incident could occur.
Bogner concluded: “An operating theatre belongs to people who have a job to do there and no one else.”