Doctor performs unnecessary operation

gasline09 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 15, 2008 11:47 pm

On TV, there was a story about a man with a mental disorder. For some reason he thought the only way for him to truly be happy is if he was missing his left leg. He went to a doctor and asked that it be amputated. The doctor knew that there was no real reason to do so but he did it anyways. When asked why he helped amputate the man's leg he said that if he didn't do it in a safe and sterile environment, then the man might have done it himself risking infection and ultimately death. What are your thoughts on this?

Yoko · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 9:53 pm **Posts:** 56

There are other instances like this (fuck, they made a Grey's Anatomy episode about it, since it's common enough but really weird). Basically, the doctor was right in that the man probably would have done anything to amputate his leg, but the doctor hopefully did some screening of the patient first. Now, was the doctor right to amputate a perfectly normal limb, instead of committing the patient for an obvious mental disturbance? I'm not sure. I would have suggested at the very least a psych eval...if he was in a hospital, chances are they had a psych ward....

Crono · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:59 am

I heard about this before, there was a woman, who was a mother, who didn't want her legs ... and she had tried to take the legs off herself in various ways and they always told the kids she was in an accident. She got them removed by a doctor and said she was really happy afterwords.

Fucked up.

Gunfanic · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:52 am

Why are some surgeons like this. These are as crazy as the story where the guy got his penis amputated by a surgeon for some sort of cancer when there were other ways of treating it.

Mr Crix · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:34 am

Ive heard of stories of people who have got cosmetic surgery done that wasnt necessary and some doctors did it. There was something about a guy who had a bump on his nose, that you could barely see and wasnt ugly or anything, it was a normal looking nose with a common bump and after like 5 tries himself by fixing it with a hammer and some stuff he got it removed by some bad doctor and he lost his nose and had to have the whole thing replaced with a prostetic and he is really happy that he can litterally pop off his nose and put a new one on this clip he had to have installed. Even though he still feels ugly, not nearly as bad as before.

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nomad · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:37 am

could this be a form of masochism or something? well like in business i suppose the saying ,"the customer is always right" must be applicable anywhere. so the doctor was ethically right...

sometimes it's eerie to find people happy when others take pity on them. i guess that's how bizarre some people are...

besides...there are alot of wackos out there who are worse...BME pain olympics...anyone?

BoboTheMonkey · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:50 am

So, anybdy can walk into a hospital and demand that some limbs be removed? These trained professionals should know better than to listen to a mentally unstable man!

Dr Dib · **Joined:** Tue May 27, 2008 4:35 pm **Posts:** 227

This may not apply here, but there was a news article where a doctor said it was okay. Link

Personally I don't see that much of a problem with it. Sure they could have gone through therapy, but there are a number of reasons not to such as financial (amputation cheaper than therapy in the long run) and stress (quick fix vs. long fix). Now of course I would rather not willingly amputate any limbs, but some people feel it is right. There is a difference between doing this at the customer's request and doing this because they feel like it. Of course the latter decision leads to malpractice lawsuits which may also be more beneficial in the long run.

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