Dr. Boyd called the night before my elective, major surgery and purposely neglected to tell me he had no intention of actually performing my once in a lifetime, TVH. None It wasn't until the next morning, just minutes before my major surgery, and only because I happened to ask the right question that Dr. Boyd informed me a resident, an unknown, doctor in training, certified to do nothing was going to perform all of my major surgery, and that Mercy was a teaching hospital. There was no apology no regret, this was not an oversight. When I protested I didn't even want a resident in the OR, Dr. Boyd told me the resident would be a better assistant than any scrub nurse the hospital would have to add. Mind you, this was for a TVH, so I believed the scrub nurses were terrible and agreed to have the resident do no surgery whatsoever and hold retractors only. So, there you have it. Everyone involved: the entire OR, resident, Dr. Boyd were notified except for me. I was just the practice… dummy, a notch for some residency requirement, as it turns out. The resident is the only doctor listed on my Mercy record. Thus, I was a victim of "Ghost Surgery", the act of substituting one surgeon for another surgeon, residents are equally culpable, for all or part of surgical procedure without the express consent of a patient who has essentially hired a specific doctor to treat them. "Ghost surgery" is considered fraud and battery of a patient (U.S. Supreme Court, 1983) and is always unethical. It was never, ever Dr. Boyd's prerogative to choose my surgeon for me. Ever. He does not have my Power of Attorney. #4 on my surgery consent form was not a permit for my credentialed provider (aka Craig Boyd) to choose without my consent some other doctor in training to practice inserting his fingers and practice performing an invasive bi-manual pelvic exam on me while I was anesthetized with my legs strapped in a lithotomy position. #4 was not a permit for him to choose some other doctor in training to practice inserting: various specula, tenaculum forceps, clamps, a scalpel, etc., and practice cutting through one organ and practice cutting out a couple more. Ugh, just despicable exploitation of my body. The entire Supreme Court statute, enacted to protect anesthetized patients from unscrupulous surgeons, easily trumps any flimsy, ridiculous interpretation of #4 that Dr.Boyd may have used as an excuse or cover-up, and it makes no allowances for Mercy the teaching hospital. Dr. Boyd also neglected to tell me that having a resident for any surgery increases anesthesia times, and can increase the risks/rates of complications by 6% or more. The risk of bladder for my TVH was .2%. So, having a resident for my surgery increased that rate 30x"s. At my follow up visit that Dr. Boyd requested, he actually described to me at length the surgical procedure he performed for vault suspension. Problem is, this was never done. It is not in my surgery report nor was my insurance billed. Was the resident not capable or qualified? Was Dr. Boyd pretending to be a better surgeon than he is? Was he in some corner of the OR writing his report, as another Mercy surgeon suggested, and didn't have a clue? Without vault suspension I have up to a 43% chance of prolapse over the next 15 years. I was in the OR for 1hr., 15 min., and in that brief amount of time I was subjected to: negligence, fraud, battery, grossly unethical behavior, greater risk for all complications, blatant exploitation; plus, the earlier deceit: the scrub nurse scam, and the sucker-job phone call. This was all done for the sake of getting a resident some practice time on me. Imagine, this is what he's teaching residents in their ethical treatment of women. If you're looking for a capable, Board Certified OB/GYN, who will treat you with respect and dignity particularly while you're anesthetized, and most vulnerable, don't even bother with Craig Boyd M.D., he doesn't care about those things at all. I know.
PS. Craig Boyd M.D. is Chairman of the Department for OB/GYN. Hopefully, his bad behavior has not permeated the rest of the department, but you never know. Please take care and good luck.
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