Doofus doc throws in the towel - literally

How's this for an oopsie…

A 2002 autopsy of a 60-year-old who'd donated her own cadaver to the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine revealed that the woman had lived with a large surgical cloth rolled up INSIDE HER LEFT LUNG since undergoing emphysema surgery in 1995…

According to an Associated Press story on the family's lawsuit against the medical facility that performed the surgery (The Cleveland Clinic), the cloth was the size of a large hand towel. The suit, filed in 2004, alleges that the towel caused complications, incurred large medical expenses, and ultimately caused the woman's death…

Also according to the piece, the victim's daughter maintains that the late woman always complained that it always felt like something was wrong in her left chest. I guess so.

Of course, the Clinic's lawyers and the offending doc himself claim the woman's life wasn't shortened by the gaffe - and that she lived as long as could be statistically expected for someone with emphysema and poor lung function.

Gee, I wonder how much of that poor lung function was caused by the newspaper-sized towel rolled up in her lung…

Not surprisingly, the judge dismissed charges against the doctor. The details of the settlement remain undisclosed…