Board Eases Sentence of Doctor Who Amputated Wrong Foot
A doctor who amputated the wrong foot of a diabetic patient and cut off another patient’s toe without her consent was fined $10,000 Saturday and barred from practicing medicine for six months.
The 15-doctor state Board of Medicine voted unanimously to reduce the sentence recommended last month by a state hearing officer.
The board cited Dr. Rolando Sanchez’s previously unblemished record and his damaged reputation, and noted that the diabetic patient’s other leg would probably have been amputated anyway.
“I’m not saying what he did wasn’t wrong,” board member Dr. Edward A. Dauer said. “But doctors are not God and hospitals are not heaven.”
The hearing officer had proposed a two-year punishment and a $15,000 fine, and recommended that Sanchez be directly supervised by another surgeon during a five-year probation.
Sanchez can apply the 140 days he has been suspended under an emergency order, so he could be back in the operating room by early 1996. He will be on probation for two years with indirect supervision.
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