Surgeon found guilty of multiple violations still practicing in Colonial Heights
All the details in our Health Safety stories come from publicly available Final Orders, Consent Orders, Orders of Suspension and other documents from the Virginia Department of Health Professionals. For more information, see the Editor’s note below the story.
COLONIAL HEIGHTS—A surgeon who harms patients during operations can be dangerous. The surgeon who harms patients and represents the incident to the Medical Board as a complaint that "involved bookkeeping and not my clinical judgment" is even more dangerous.
That’s exactly what Colonial Heights-based surgeon Barton Palmer Smith did — while he was being investigated for his treatment of another patient during and after surgery.
In 2016, Smith performed surgery on a colon cancer patient. During the surgery, he injured the patient, causing a leak in a tube that transports urine from the kidney to the bladder. The patient’s health deteriorated rapidly over several days following the surgery. But aside from observing this deterioration in the patient’s medical charts, Smith did little to address his patient’s alarming symptoms, which included a distended abdomen, disorientation and shortness of breath.
It wasn’t until eight days after the surgery that Smith ordered the CT scan that revealed the injury that he had inflicted on his patient during surgery, which was causing urine to leak inside his body and resulted in several severe complications that ultimately could have been deadly, including sepsis.
The patient was forced to undergo multiple additional treatments and surgeries to address the resulting damage, and Smith’s treatment of his patient was found to be in violation of Virginia code.
This was not the first time that Smith violated Virginia code in his treatment of a patient. In 2008, he violated Virginia code by failing to properly monitor and treat a patient following surgery, despite writing in her chart that he had — something he later admitted was untrue. As a result, the patient was forced to undergo additional procedures to treat an infected incision site, including a blood transfusion.
As part of a Department of Health investigation into the botched 2016 surgery, Smith stated that his only previous complaint—the 2008 case—involved “bookkeeping” and not his “clinical judgement.” That "fraudulent, false and misleading information" once again violated Virginia code.
Smith also failed to report on his Virginia Practitioner Profile a medical malpractice judgment exceeding $10,000, an "above average" claim in his specialty. Only 3.43% of practitioners in this specialty have any claims against them. It was another violation of Virginia code.
Despite being reprimanded by the Virginia Board of Medicine in 2022 for his repeat violations of Virginia code, Smith's license was not suspended. He was required to complete a course on the laparoscopic colon procedure, and to add the medical malpractice payout to his practitioner profile.
In a note acknowledging that Smith had completed these steps, the board allowed him to continue practicing medicine unrestricted and wished him well in his future endeavors. His license is listed as current and active on the state's license lookup.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: When citizens are a danger to the public safety, law enforcement arrests them and charges them with crimes; they have the opportunity to face a jury of their peers; if convicted, they serve time and/or probation that can often ensnare them in the system for years.
When a medical professional is an alleged danger to the public safety, the Virginia Department of Health Professionals handles all facets of the inquiry, including the investigation and penalties. And sometimes, even when a medical professional is found liable of doing harm to patients, they may face a reprimand, pay a fine and continue to practice, without missing a day of work and with little chance for the public to see what they’ve done.
The Health Safety stories in this series tell the facts of cases where medical professionals endanger our public health safety. They also bring you into the world of the medical board’s consent orders and public final orders, so you can see exactly how the VDHP’s self-policing system works.
DOCUMENTS REFERENCED IN THIS STORY:
July 24, 2009 Notification of conference
September 22, 2009 Reprimand Order
December 2, 2009 Termination of terms
July 25, 2022 Termination of Reprimand terms
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Surgeon botched surgeries, gave false info to medical board, allowed to continue practice
