Doctor Is Suspended Over Errand
A Boston orthopedic surgeon has been suspended from practice after disclosures that he abandoned a patient midway through back surgery so he could go to the bank to deposit his paycheck.
Although the unnamed patient was resting comfortably after a successful spinal fusion procedure, the Board of Registration in Medicine on Wednesday labeled Dr. David C. Arndt “an immediate and serious threat to the health, safety and welfare of the public.”
Arndt was not available for comment at his Cambridge office Thursday.
But a report from the state medical board said that six hours into spinal surgery July 10, Arndt abruptly told colleagues in the operating room at Mount Auburn Hospital that he had to “step out.”
His patient was under anesthesia at the time, with his back cut open.
Grabbing a ride from a medical device salesperson, Arndt went to his bank in nearby Harvard Square. He returned to complete the surgery about 35 minutes later.
“Patient abandonment” is the term the medical board uses to describe such behavior. Executive director Nancy Achin Sullivan said she had never seen anything quite so flagrant.
Arndt, 45, is a Harvard Medical School graduate with operating privileges at some of Boston’s most prestigious hospitals. He can appeal his suspension at an upcoming hearing of the state board.
The incident came to the board’s attention after nurses and an anesthesiologist on duty during the surgery reported Arndt’s behavior to hospital officials. The hospital suspended Arndt the next day.
An affidavit filed by a state medical investigator said, “The supervising anesthesiologist observed the patient in a prone position with an open incision in his back.”
Another surgeon who was present but was not scrubbed or authorized to perform the fusion procedure said he assumed Arndt had just “stepped out” to use the restroom, according to the medical board report.
Earlier in the week, Arndt told an investigator for the state medical board that he “exercised remarkably horrible judgment.”
