MIAMI — Asking the patient to confirm where a cancer surgery should be performed after the patient had been given a sedative led to a Tampa area doctor performing a wrong site surgery, a state complaint said.
The administrative complaint against the license of Safety Harbor doctor Robert Davidson starts the discipline process. Davidson’s online Florida Department of Health license profile shows no previous disciplinary actions against the license he’s held in Florida since 2002.
An email from the Miami Herald to the address on his profile was not returned.
The complaint, filed Feb. 23, says a patient referred to in the complaint as “T.M.” came to Davidson’s office with a melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic, on the right upper back last June 21. So, T.M. was fine with a “wide local excision” on the right upper back.
T.M. returned on July 13 for the excision surgery and signed a consent form for the wide local procedure to be done on the right upper back.
“Prior to surgery, Patient T.M. was administered a sedative and then asked to confirm the location for the procedure,” the complaint said. “Patient T.M. indicated a location on the left side of the back, which was marked by [Davidson].”
And, the complaint said, Davidson did a wide local excision on the left lower back instead of the right upper back.
The complaint says Davidson rectified his mistake 17 days later, on July 30.
Florida statutes say a doctor is subject to discipline for procedures done on the wrong site, the wrong person, or the right person but the wrong procedure.
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