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Austrian surgeon 'let teenage daughter drill hole in patient's skull' (news.sky.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Following a forestry accident in January, a 33-year-old man was flown by air ambulance to Graz University Hospital, Styria, southeastern Austria, with serious head injuries, according to Kronen Zeitung, an Austrian newspaper.

He needed emergency surgery, but the doctor allegedly let his 13-year-old daughter take part in operating on him.

The newspaper reported that she even drilled a hole in the patient's skull.

While the operation was said to have gone off without issue, the patient is still unable to work and investigations by the Graz public prosecutor's officer against the entire surgical team are continuing.

...

The alleged victim initially learned about the case in the media before later being told by authorities he was a witness in an investigation.

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[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks 33 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Those drills are designed to stop once they get past the hardness of the skull. That part is probably the safest thing the teen could have done. Still shouldn't have been done because of all the cooties girls have but it's not like anything was going to go wrong with this particular part of the operation.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Interesting to know. More interesting would be how and why a 13-year-old was allowed to scrub in and play any role at all in an emergency cranial surgery...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

Meh, there's really no overarching governing body regarding this. At academic facilities, most operations are primarily performed by residents (completed medical school and are doctors, but not specialized) and medical students (not yet doctors). All this is done under the license of the attending doctor. It's increasingly common for surgeries to be performed by NPs (who can get degrees online), PAs (this requires 3 years of in person work), or surgical assistants (few weeks certificate course). It's all based on the level of comfort of the attending physician. If he/she was directly overseeing the daughter drilling and ensured sterile technique, probably not the cause of the patient being "unable to work". That's probably more so due to that fact that TBIs suck.

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