Posted on 04/09/2026 5:12:29 PM PDT by CFW
An Ohio doctor is reportedly suing a surgery center alleging that his patient died of a fatal overdose after a “tummy tuck” procedure.
Dr. Shahryar Tork, a plastic surgeon based in Cincinnati, filed a civil lawsuit against JourneyLite Surgery and its anesthesia partner Associated Anesthesiologists of Springfield, Inc., claiming negligence and underqualified personnel led to the death of patient Rachel Tussey, according to WLWT. Tussey had a “tummy tuck” at the surgery center and was reportedly later found to be unresponsive during her recovery.
[snip]
Tork said the surgery went well and Tussey needed “very low doses of pain medication throughout the procedure,” according to the lawsuit cited by WLWT. Tork alleged that two nurses at the facility administered 150 micrograms of fentanyl and .5 mg of Dilaudid that caused Tussey to suffer a fatal overdose.
“JourneyLite’s unqualified post-anesthesia-care unit nurse administered an opioid overdose, resulting in Mrs. Tussey’s death,” the lawsuit read, according to PEOPLE. Workers at the surgery center allegedly tried to cover up the overdose by falsifying medical documents.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
I assume the dosage should have been 1.50 mcg and the nurses read it as 15.0.
The doctor is trying to get ahead of the curve on this one.
No, probably not. There are standards in place in an effort to prevent such errors -- e.g., writing 1.5 mcg or 15 mcg or 0.15 mcg.
A dose of 1 mcg/kg is not really a high dose, although you may want to max the initial dose at, say, 100 mcg. You should probably have naloxone available if you're administering fentanyl -- or at least something to help ventilate the patient if they stop breathing. Hopefully someone notices.
Related to Peter Tork?
150 mics of fentanyl can be fatal in an opioid-naive patient. My starter dose for a naive patient was 25, maybe 50 max.
When I read “Tussy had a tummy tuck” I looked up to see if it was The Bee. lol
Thanks for the info. I don’t know much about fentanyl, drug measurements, and proper dosing. Don’t let me administer it to anyone. LOL!
Not unless he too changed his name from Thorkelson.
A Doctor is suing on behalf of his dead patient?
Isn’t that something grieving family members are expected to do?
I don’t know anything about anesthesia except the first time I had it, I was out for hours, Woke up surrounded by nurses calling my name and slapping me gently to wake me up. They told me they’d never seen anyone respond that way to anesthesia. I hadn’t had much.
Before subsequent surgeries with different docs, I told them to give me as little as possible. If I woke up during procedure, I’d lift my forefinger and wave it around. Happened a couple of times and nurses caught it. No harm, no foul.
Fortunately, I’m a surgeon’s worst customer. Healthy as can be at 89. My MD said I’m the healthiest personmy age he’s ever seen. Only my vision sux, still does after recent corneal transplant. Grrrrrrrrr!!!
“A Doctor is suing on behalf of his dead patient?
Isn’t that something grieving family members are expected to do?”
The doctor did the surgery so I guess his reputation is on the line due to the actions of the nurses after he had already left the hospital. Either the family isn’t too concerned with the loss or their lawsuit is totally separate.
She was hired right out of high school but quickly worked up into the central office, wiring on the main frames, then installing new circuits, testing them and handing them over to the customers. She was able to transfer to Project Manager, facing the business customers.
Her surgery appeared to go without a hitch but in the next year, it turned out that the doctor didn't leave enough stomach for her to live on. It's very sad thinking back.
Mel Blanc, the fellow who voiced cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, had an operation but, try as they might, they just couldn't rouse him from his anesthetic stupor.
Finally, in desperation, the doctor said to Mel, "Eh, what's up, Doc?" in his best mimicry of Bugs.
That worked! Mel replied, in character, and gradually he regained full consciousness.
A tummy tuck is just a cosmetic surgery that removes skin-it doesn’t remove any of your stomach or anything else on the inside. Your co-worker would have had to have weight loss surgery-a gastric bypass, sleeve, etc for her not to have anything go wrong with her stomach-do you know what gastric procedure she had done?
I’ve never heard of any gastric surgeon messing up like that-but I have heard of patients who have had gastric bypass/sleeve doing stuff like eating too much and causing a rupture, not paying attention to dietary restrictions, etc-those things can kill you...
Oops-”for her TO have anything”...
Great response. LMAO
“Anesthetic stupor?”
Is that like being drunk?
“Related to Peter Tork?”
Doubtful. It was the nurses Monkeeing around with dosages, not the doc.
I had the opposite problem...beginning of cataract surgery doc inserts needle just below eye...the anesthesiologist must have messed up...I was yelling “that is the most painful thing ever” (there were other patients in curtained off “rooms” surrounding me) Doc gives anethes. dirty look and says THIS won’t hurt, and trys again. And no pain.
I had wisdom teeth taken out when I was in my early teens. The anesthesiologist gorked me to the point that I woke up around supper time propped up in a chair in the waiting room with only the receptionist and my mom still there.
Mom spent many years working in hospitals and looked at me with “that look” and said “I didn’t think you were going to wake up.”
The kid that walked out of there wasn’t near the kid that walked in.
A pretty large dose of fentanyl but not unusual as was the dose of Dilaudid. Post Op open heart surgery I was given much more. It stopped the pain. The doses described above did not kill the patient. I suspect it was an error of dosing or something that had nothing to do with the drug or dosing.
cpdiii Hospital Clinical Pharmacist.
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