Surgeon removes wrong organ, killing patient, Florida official says. He's suspended

A surgeon continued dissecting the wrong organ during a man’s surgery as he was bleeding out on an operating room table — and then removed it, killing him, according to an emergency order issued by Florida’s surgeon general.

Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky placed a “readily-identifiable liver” on the table and shocked the OR staff when he said it was William (Bill) Bryan’s spleen at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Walton County, the order dated Sept. 24 says.

“One staff member felt sick to their stomach,” according to the order, which says staff’s attempts to resuscitate Bryan were unsuccessful.

Bryan, 70, died during what was supposed to be a splenectomy Aug. 21, medical records show.

State Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo ordered an emergency suspension of Shaknovsky’s license in Florida on Sept. 24 over his mistakes during Bryan’s procedure and a prior surgery, when the order says he wrongly removed part of a patient’s pancreas.

“Dr. Shaknovsky’s repeated egregious surgical errors resulting in significant patient harm coupled with his failure to take responsibility for these errors indicates that his reckless conduct is likely to continue,” Ladapo wrote.

Shaknovsky didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Sept. 26.

His suspension comes after William Bryan’s wife, Beverly, hired attorney Joe Zarzaur and called for civil and criminal proceedings over her husband’s death, McClatchy News reported Sept. 3.

Beverly Bryan said in a statement to McClatchy News on Sept. 26 that her husband “became a homicide victim in the operating room” on Aug. 21.

“My family and I and friends in Walton County, and the surrounding area that use that hospital, are simply relieved that the Florida Board of Medicine has made the decision to suspend the medical license of Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky,” Beverly Bryan said.

Shaknovsky is also licensed to practice medicine in Alabama, records show.

“We’re hoping that the board of medicine in Alabama will suspend or revoke his license as well; the sooner the better,” Beverly Bryan said.

What happened during William Bryan’s surgery

In August, the Bryans were visiting their rental property in Florida when William Bryan felt pain on the left side of his body, McClatchy News previously reported.

Before his death, he repeatedly refused surgery, an operative report shows. He asked to be released and wanted to drive to Alabama to see his doctor after he was admitted to Ascension on Aug. 18, according to the report.

There, Shaknovsky and another doctor encouraged surgery due to an issue with William Bryan’s spleen and warned “serious complications” could occur if he left their care, Zarzaur’s law firm said in an Aug. 30 news release.

He underwent surgery Aug. 21.

That evening, OR staff members “had concerns” that Shaknovsky “did not have the skill level to safely perform” a splenectomy, a procedure that wasn’t “regularly performed at Ascension,” his suspension order shows.

After he began operating, William Bryan started hemorrhaging, and staff called a code to begin emergency efforts to resuscitate him, the order says.

Shaknovsky said he decided to complete the procedure in “a last-ditch effort” and fired a “stapling device blindly into the abdomen and removed an organ that he believed to be a spleen,” the order says.

In a recorded video in which Zarzaur reviewed the order Sept. 25, he said that Shaknovsky was “basically blindly cutting out the liver as everybody else in the room was still trying to save (William Bryan’s) life.”

According to Ladapo, Shaknovsky then lied in medical records and insisted he removed William Bryan’s spleen, telling staff to label his removed liver as a spleen.

In a surgical pathology report written by Dr. Robert Blanchard, the pathologist noted the organ removed from Bryan’s body was a “grossly identifiable” liver that was partly torn.

Shaknovsky was “attempting to avoid blame” by maintaining he removed William Bryan’s spleen, according to the order.

“This level of dishonesty and fraud is incompatible with the level of integrity that is necessary to be able to practice safely as an osteopathic physician,” the order says.

Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast told McClatchy News on Sept. 3 the hospital’s leadership team was investigating William Bryan’s surgery.

An earlier surgical mistake

In May 2023, Shaknovsky was supposed to remove a 58-year-old man’s adrenal gland but removed part of his pancreas, according to the suspension order.

Shaknovsky documented that he removed the adrenal gland before a pathologist identified it as “pancreatic tissue,” the order says.

A few days later, the patient returned to Ascension “with leakage and pain” and was vomiting, according to the order, which says he is permanently injured.

“Dr. Shaknovsky’s continued practice as an osteopathic physician presents an immediate, serious danger to the health, welfare, and safety of the public,” Ladapo wrote in suspending his license.

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