An 84-year-old Indian-American doctor has been placed on probation and fined following two botched colonoscopy procedures, one of which involved his failure to hear a patient's cries due to not wearing his hearing aids.
According to complaints filed with the Florida Department of Health, during one procedure, Dr.Ishwari Prasad improperly delegated critical tasks to an unlicensed surgical technician, who was instructed to manipulate the colonoscopy scope despite lacking adequate medical training.
In a second incident, Dr. Prasad began the colonoscopy before the patient was fully sedated, causing the patient to scream in pain. The complaint noted that Prasad failed to stop the procedure, an oversight attributed to his not wearing hearing aids.
According to the Miami Herald, the patient's IV line had a problem, which caused the inadequate sedation. Both incidents took place at the Tampa Ambulatory Surgery Centre as per the complaint.
As a consequence of these findings, the Florida Board of Medicine has placed Prasad on probation, fined him US$ 7,500, and ordered him to pay US$ 6,301 in case costs. He is also required to complete a five-hour medical ethics course and is barred from performing procedures independently until he completes 10 supervised gastroenterology procedures.
Further, The Miami Herald reported that despite being instructed to wait, Prasad continued the procedure, exacerbating the patient’s discomfort. The investigation also found that the surgical technician frequently performed tasks beyond her training, allegedly due to Prasad's inability to manage them himself. Prasad must complete the mandated course by Aug. 7 of next year.
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