Ethics in practice

Abstract

An attending orthopaedic surgeon, an orthopaedic resident, and a spine Fellow are scheduled to perform a multilevel spinal decompression and instrumentation from L3 to S1. The case is delayed for several hours and begins in the late afternoon. The attending orthopaedist chooses not to wait for localization radiographs and proceeds with the decompression and four-level pedicle screw instrumentation with posterior-lateral fusion. The Fellow suggests several times during the procedure that radiographs should be obtained, but the attending surgeon is late for a meeting and declines to obtain radiographs.