Doctors Operate on Wrong Side of Two Patients’ Heads

6/9/2005 - Daily Herald
By Rob Olmstead, Daily Herald Staff Writer

Wearing big, bright buttons on their lapels that read "L" and "R," two suburban residents Wednesday showed they know what they claim their doctors didn’t – their left from their right.

In two unrelated cases, Rashida Aziz, 35, of Lombard and Elie G. Ghawi, 62, of St. Charles had the wrong side of their heads operated on. In Ghawi’s case, doctors from Loyola University Medical Center on Sept. 4, 2003, opened up the left side of his head and began drilling into his skull before they realized they were supposed to be operating on the right side. They stopped and proceeded with the correct side during the same operating session.

In Aziz’s case, Dr. Konstantin Slavin completed an entire operation on the right side of her head on Dec. 27, 2004, before he realized his mistake. He performed the correct surgery a few days later.

Both Aziz and Ghawi suffer from trigeminal neuralgia, a little-understood condition that causes shooting pains in the faces of its victims. Ghawi compared the sensation to "if you ever got shocked by electrical wire." To end the pain, doctors essentially disconnect a nerve in th head so the patient doesn’t feel the pain anymore.

Aziz and Ghawi told their story at a press conference at Clifford Law Offices, where their attorney, Keith A. Hebeisen works. Hebeisen maintained that both were subjected to unnecessary pain and risk of infection and complications. He filed suit on behalf of Aziz Wednesday and on behalf of Ghawi May 2.

Aziz said she had the added burden of having to fear what would happen in the second surgery.

"God knows what’s going to happen on the other side," she said.

Both Aziz and Ghawi said their surgeries – the correct one – did end up curing their pain.

A spokesman for Loyola declined to comment. Slavin also declined to comment.