The plaintiff, a 30-year-old male, with no children, a life partner, and a desire to be married and to raise a family has a complicated past medical history, which includes a bilateral nephrectomy and a right renal transplant in 2017 (his mother was his donor). This history is important since his medical condition requires him to be under the constant care of surgeons, specialists, and other doctors for the remainder of his hopefully long life.
The plaintiff went to see the Defendant surgeon for the evaluation of symptomatic inguinal hernia. The Plaintiff chose to undergo robotic-assisted right inguinal repair with mesh. Good medical care requires the surgeon to differentiate the plaintiff’s spermatic cord, the vas deferens, and the epididymis from the hernia sac, to protect the patient from needless harm, and in this instance, the iatrogenic removal of his testical. Alas, the surgeon failed to do this.
The surgeon’s operative report stated that there were no intraoperative complications, and he told his patient that everything “went well”. The pathology report, however, told a different story: during the surgery, the surgeon removed the entire right testis and epididymis.
Post operatively, the plaintiff complained of persistent surgical site pain and tenderness. On examination his scrotom appeared enlarged. What’s more, as the swelling slowly decreased, the plaintiff himself discovered the absence of his right testical; yet no one on the surgical team informed him of this iatrogenic injury until his first post operative visit, which was about two months later! Indeed, the loss of this testicle was not even discovered until the specimen was sent to pathology, and the defendant surgeon did not even deign to discuss this surgical error with his patient until nearly two months later .
As a result of this medical departure, the plaintiff has been harmed in many ways. Because his surgeon and the hospital concealed the truth from him, he now has a profound mistrust of medical professionals. This will cause him substantial difficulties as he goes through life, since as a kidney transplant recipient, and as someone who suffers from the consequences of a right sided orchiectomy, he will require ongoing, chronic and challenging medical care and treatment to address both conditions. His therapist reports that he suffers from iatrophobia, panic attacks, insomnia, and the inability to stop persistent flashbacks about the surgery when the doctors removed his testicle.
Medically, his T levels are dramatically reduced. His semen analysis has 0 sperm motility, and any future pregnancy will only be accomplished through IVF. He also suffers from Hypogonadism, which will require hormone replacement treatment for the remainder of his life. Such treatment often results in severe consequences, such as loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, a loss of spontaneous erections, lowered sperm count, infertility, eventual breast enlargement,
reduced muscle mass, shrinkage of the remaining testis, the loss of that testis to produce testosterone, and a host of other adverse effects.
During mediation, the parties agreed to resolve this matter for a substantial sum, approaching seven figures. Because of a Confidentiality Agreement, the details of the settlement and the identity of parties, cannot be disclosed.
