A surgeon operating at Stratton VA Medical Center performed radio-frequency ablations on patients at Stratton. He was unable to do the ablation but let the patients think he had. When later MRI's showed increased size of mass, he informed them the masses were residual or recurrent. The report from the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General said this was inaccurate and deprived the patients of full understanding and the option to select another provider.
The OIG report noted that the surgeon "did not have adequate documentation showing competence to perform the procedure." The OIG made recommendation to Stratton VA to improve their processes. The surgeon was not disciplined. Or named.
Likely scenario: Doctor hears about fairly new procedure called Radiofrequency Ablation. He thinks, "Ah, new, sounds easy." And though he has no training in this specialty, he decides to try his hand. He found he was not able to ablate anything, but didn't admit to it. When follow-up testing showed increased mass size, he told the patients either the tumor was left over from the ablation or was a new growth altogether. That can be called misrepresentation, but seems more like an outright lie. The surgeon was not disciplined, or named.
The article states that the patients were referred to an interventional radiologist who treated the patients successfully. So Surgeon #1 was evidently not in that field; the OIG report noted he lacked adequate documentation and they recommended the hospital review its credentialing program. YOU THINK!
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