A Massachusetts urologist removed a kidney from the wrong patient after mistakenly reading the CT scan of another man with the same name — who had the same type of scan done on the same day.
Dr. Ankur M. Parikh, 37, who practices in Worcester, was reprimanded last month by the state’s Board of Registration in Medicine in connection with the 2016 incident, the Telegram & Gazette reported this week.
Back in July 2016, Parikh removed a healthy kidney from Albert Hubbard Jr., then 65, after confusing his CT scan results with those of the other patient, who was 70 years old, the paper reported.
Both men had received the exact same stomach and pelvis scan on the exact same day, according to the report.
Hubbard had been complaining of blood in his urine and told Parikh what day he’d been scanned, the outlet reported.
Then the doctor logged into UMass Memorial’s records system, searched Hubbard’s first and last name and pulled up the scan.
Hubbard was shocked when Parikh informed him he had a large tumor on his kidney that needed to be removed, according to a consent order.
“He said he had to take it out right away,” Hubbard told the paper in 2017. “He said I probably had three to five years to live. I walked home and I can still relive every single step. It shattered me.”
The doctor removed the kidney 12 days later at St. Vincent Hospital — but the organ was found to be healthy.
Once he realized his blunder, Parikh approached Hubbard’s bedside “with a terrible look on his face.”
“He said, ‘There’s been a real bad mistake. We took out your kidney by accident,’ ” Hubbard told the paper. “It almost felt like a dream, except that it wasn’t.”
Parikh added, “I could have not told you,” according to Hubbard.
The state determined that Parikh failed to verify Hubbard’s date of birth, did not review the CT scan on the day of the procedure and elected to remove the organ — even though it was much lighter than a kidney with a large tumor would normally be.
Hubbard has a lawsuit pending against Parikh, St. Vincent Hospital, UMass Memorial Medical Group, Wayne Glazier P.C. Urology — of which Parikh is a member — and other medical staff involved, the paper reported.
Both sides are still in discovery, or gathering information, for the lawsuit, Hubbard’s lawyer, Jeffrey S. Raphaelson, told the outlet.
But the institutions named in the suit “continue to deny responsibility for what happened,” Raphaelson added, emphasizing that he wants to ensure no other patients fall victim to the costly mishap.
“In our view, this was a systemic problem,” he said.
Parikh’s reprimand is “fairly standard” for a doctor with no previous infractions who wrongly removed an organ, Raphaelson explained.
Spokespeople for St. Vincent and UMass Memorial didn’t immediately respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.