Just after removing Ingrid Paulicivic's uterus in June 2009, urogynecologist Red M. Alinsod, MD, FACOG, FACS, ACGE, used a novel — and for Ms. Paulicivic upsetting — method to label the specimen. While Ms. Paulicivic was still under general anesthesia, the surgeon burned "Ingrid" into the uterus with an electrocautery device.

Ms. Paulicivic, who claims that she was burned on her legs by the electrocautery device, didn't know what Dr. Alinsod had done until later. During an office visit the Laguna Beach, Calif., surgeon showed her photographs of the uterus that someone in the operating room had taken. The name, about an inch tall and 5 inches wide, was a "gesture of friendship," said Dr. Alinsod in a press report.

Ms. Paulicivic, who doesn't consider Dr. Alinsod a friend, didn't appreciate the gesture. On Sept. 3, she filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Alinsod in Superior Court of California in Orange County. Burning a patient's name in a medical specimen is a "gross departure from the known and accepted methods," claims the lawsuit that asks for an unspecified amount of damages for the pain, scarring and emotional trauma of the event.

"It's odd," said Ms. Paulicivic's attorney, Devan Mullins of Long Beach, Calif. Although he wasn't in the operating room, Mr. Mullins told Outpatient Surgery Magazine that he believes Dr. Alinsod removed the uterus, put it on Ms. Paulicivic's lap and then started writing with the electrocautery device. Fluid from the uterus probably seeped through the drapes and burned Ms. Paulicivic each time Dr. Alinsod wrote a letter. The scar on Ms. Paulicivic's leg from the burn is about 2-inches in diameter. "It's not a sunburn," said Mr. Mullins, who has copies of the photos.

Dr. Alinsod's office referred a request for comment for this article to an attorney, who did not return a call before deadline. However, Dr. Alinsod told The Smoking Gun website that he burned the name in the uterus because he "did not want to get it confused with others." He said he believed it was appropriate to write on the uterus because Ms. Paulicivic was a "good friend." For other patients, specimens are usually labeled on a sterile towel or a sterile piece of wood, the surgeon told the website.

This is not the first time that a surgeon's odd sense of whimsy has resulted in a malpractice lawsuit. In 2008, Steven Kirshner, MD, of Mt. Holly, N.J., applied a temporary rose tattoo next to the vagina of a spine surgery patient. In 2003, 10 women sued Kentucky surgeon James Guiler, MD, for branding "UK" — for his alma mater, the University of Kentucky — on their uteruses during hysterectomies. Similar to Dr. Alinsod's case, Dr. Guiler had given the women videos of their hysterectomies and the brandings. In each case the surgeons said they were trying to have a little fun during the workday.

Attorneys for Dr. Alinsod have yet to file a response to Ms. Paulicivic's complaint.

Kent Steinriede

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