Longtime South Florida hip/knee doctor did surgery on the wrong body part, state says
Performing arthroscopic surgery on the right knee of an 81-year-old man will cost Delray Beach orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Buchalter $7,899 and got him reprimanded by the state’s Board of Medicine.
Buchalter was supposed to do arthroscopic surgery on the left knee.
That’s according to the Florida Department of Health administrative complaint, which was filed Oct. 28, 2019. The Department of Health and Buchalter, the president of South Palm Orthopedics, reached a settlement agreement on Dec. 2, 2020. The Board of Medicine’s Final Order approving the settlement agreement came down Monday.
Buchalter will pay a $3,000 fine; $4,899 in Department of Health investigation and prosecution costs; must take a three-hour risk management continuing medical education (CME) course; a one-hour wrong site CME course; and get the aforementioned reprimand against his license.
In the 30 years and one month that Buchalter’s had that license, he’s been punished similarly once before. After the state said he was slipshod in his treatment of a patient’s post-surgery knee problems, Buchalter paid $10,689 in fines and fees, did 25 hours of community service and took a three-hour CME course on “ensuring good stabilization of knees during a total knee replacement arthroplasty.”
Left knee, wrong knee
The administrative complaint says on Jan. 10, 2019, Buchalter was scheduled for arthroscopic knee surgery at Delray Medical Center on a patient referred to as “R.S.”
Buchalter met with R.S. in the ambulatory care unit and completed the verification process, the complaint said, “including comparing the signed consent with the surgical order, scheduled procedure and patient’s stated procedure.” A second verification occurred when the unit handed R.S. over to the operating team.
“The OR team performed an anesthesia time-out, confirming Patient R.S.’s identity and the correct surgical site,” the complaint said. “After the anesthesia time-out, (Buchalter’s) physician’s assistant positioned Patient R.S.’s right leg for surgery. The OR team performed a final time-out, but did not notice that the wrong knee had been positioned and draped for surgery.”
And, the complaint says, Buchalter proceeded to perform surgery on the wrong knee.
This story was originally published March 20, 2021 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Longtime South Florida hip/knee doctor did surgery on the wrong body part, state says."
