Finn Thormeier

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Update on the shoulder. I broke my shoulder 2 weeks ago at BJJ practice (please learn your break falls!!), and turns out it's been a whole SAGA getting it properly treated, with a nice pinch of malpractice/incompetence in there.

Last week, I spent most of Monday at the hospital to do a CT scan. Then I went to a different place on Wed to do an MRI. Then I went back to the hospital on Friday for them to look at the CT, MRI, and the original X-rays from the accident, to give me an opinion.

The doctor I talked to said that surgery is needed, and he scheduled it right away for Tuesday (which would've been today)

I wanted to get a second opinion, so I did some research on who the best doctors are in Berlin for this. Turns out there's actually two renowned shoulder surgeons in Berlin, both of whom have published a paper on treatment strategies for the exact kind of fracture I have.

So I emailed them separately on Friday at 5pm with all of the information and imaging I had so far, which I had luckily already requested from the hospital, asking them for an urgent second opinion.

2 hours later, I have a personal reply from both of them. Mind you, this is 7pm on a Friday.

One replied asking me to come in on Monday morning. The other gives me a call and tells me that he reviewed all my files and that he would NOT proceed with surgery based on what he saw.

I told him that I have an appointment on Monday morning with the other guy and he concedes that’s the #1 person in Berlin to look at my shoulder, and that I should send him his regards when I go see him.

Yesterday I went there.

No surgery needed.

When I told him what my doctor at the hospital told me, he said that those things are just flat-out wrong.

I had specifically asked my doctor on Friday very directly about what they believe the probability is, if I'd get a second opinion from a shoulder specialist, that they’d come to a different conclusion. They said that it's very, very unlikely.

Well, here we are. The top two surgeons in Berlin disagree.

It would’ve been one thing if the doctor had told me that it's an edge case, that they're not 100% confident, that I should get a second opinion, etc. But no, they confidently told me that surgery was needed.

One, I'm obviously glad I don't need to do surgery.

Two, I'm glad I decided to do this research, get a second opinion, and reach out to these doctors, otherwise I'd be lying in a hospital bed right now, going into anesthesia.

But three, it's kinda fucked up.

I sent an email to the doctor, the head of their orthopedic department and the hospital's QA team to recount the bad advice and factually wrong information I was given, requesting an internal review. Not sure if it will do anything, but hopefully next time they have a bit more humility, sending people to an actual specialist or ENCOURAGING getting a second opinion instead of discouraging it.

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