Lawsuit Targets Tampa, Fla., Doctor's Training

St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa is responsible for the death because supervisors there did not make sure Fusia was properly trained on the da Vinci Surgical System robot, the Greenway family's attorney, Steven Yerrid, asserts in the lawsuit. The device has a mechanical arm guided by a surge...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inKnight Ridder Tribune Business News p. 1
Main Author Good, Joshua B
Format Newsletter
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Tribune Content Agency LLC 17.12.2003
Subjects
Kidneys
Physicians
Robots
Surgery
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Summary:St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa is responsible for the death because supervisors there did not make sure Fusia was properly trained on the da Vinci Surgical System robot, the Greenway family's attorney, Steven Yerrid, asserts in the lawsuit. The device has a mechanical arm guided by a surgeon seated at a control center with joysticks and a video screen, according to the company's Web site. The robot is manufactured by Intuitive Surgical Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif. Fusia attended a three-day seminar in June 2002 hosted by the manufacturer. Fusia was to use the machine to remove a kidney from a pig, but he did not complete the procedure, the lawsuit states. He did remove a gallbladder from a dead body. Yerrid also claims that Fusia told Greenway and his wife, Brenda Greenway, that he had used robots to remove kidneys "dozens" of times, though that wasn't true with the da Vinci machine, according to the lawsuit.