I am sure that if I was a surgeon I would operate on the wrong patients, the wrong body parts, and who knows what else, maybe even going to the wrong hospital, in the wrong city, and maybe even the wrong country! I have presently forgotten where I have put my keys. If I was a surgeon I am sure I would lose them inside some poor patient, stitching him up with the keys next to his heart transplant, who might then steal my BMW, post-op. But, I am not, and never was a surgeon, just a house wife, and now a poor pensioner, struggling to survive on my meagre Centrelink.
“Michelle Smith’s specialists were baffled when they reviewed her MRI scans from brain surgery she’d undergone more than a decade ago.
A craniotomy had been performed on the left side of her head when her tumour was on the right.
Their puzzlement soon turned to horror when they suspected her neurosurgeon Charlie Teo had not only failed to remove her tumour, he had operated on the wrong side of her brain.
Ms Smith, from Bradbury in Sydney’s west, left school in Year 10 because of her epileptic seizures.
The seizures would occur without warning and she was aware of nothing until she woke up with people around her or she would find herself in an Emergency Department.
After seeing Dr Teo on television, Ms Smith, then 19, was convinced the celebrity neurosurgeon could remove the tumour that was causing her epileptic seizures.
Her mother Anica Bolic recalls their consultation with Dr Teo in 2003. Her daughter thought he was “cool”. Her mother did not.
“He had a jelly snake hanging out of his mouth” and his feet on the desk, Ms Bolic said. He explained the operation would be expensive but that he was the best person to do it.
He then posed the question to her: “So you need to decide how much is your daughter’s life worth?”
As it turned out it was $46,000. After her brain surgery, Ms Smith was in hospital overnight and then sent home.
Although Dr Teo proclaimed the surgery a success, the seizures were still occurring and within three years Ms Smith was suffering multiple seizures every day.
If he [Dr Teo] had done it correctly the first time, he would not have literally destroyed my life.
Michelle Smith
Because of the seizures, full-time employment was impossible. After she had a car accident due to a seizure, Ms Smith went to see other specialists.
Studying Dr Teo’s MRI scans 12 years later, her new specialists informed her that the MRI scans showed no evidence of any surgery on the tumour. Instead, scar tissue indicated that Dr Teo may have removed healthy brain tissue from the other side of her brain.
Dr Teo later indicated that he was justified in conducting the operation in the manner he did, describing the procedure as: “Dura [outer layer of tissue] opened and reflected. Right mesial posterior parietal [position in brain] tumour approached from left-sided craniotomy. Falxciotomy performed for access to right side of brain.”
In 2016 another neurosurgeon successfully removed the tumour. The operation was done in a public hospital and cost Ms Smith nothing.
Ms Smith is thrilled with what she has accomplished in the five years since her second surgery. “If he [Dr Teo] had done it correctly the first time, he would not have literally destroyed my life,” she said of what she sees as more than a decade of lost time and opportunities.
In 2019 she sued Dr Teo for professional negligence and the case was later settled. While the terms remain confidential, Ms Smith was very happy with the outcome.
Dr Teo told the Herald that after treating 11,000 patients over his 35-year career he has been sued only twice.
“One was settled out of court while the other was thrown out of court,” he said in a statement.”