The Florida Board of Medicine has fined a Broward County, Fla., surgeon $5,000 for removing a healthy kidney from an 83-year-old patient instead of taking out his gallbladder, the Miami Herald reported.

According to the newspaper account, the surgeon’s attorney argued that the kidney removal was a complication of surgery, but a hearing officer said kidney removal does not qualify as a complication of gallbladder removal. The removed kidney reportedly was located where the patient’s gallbladder should have been.

From the July 01, 2010 Issue of Renal and Urology News

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Legal Issues In Medicine