Florida complaint details error in colostomy procedure that was later corrected
A Florida doctor did a procedure on the wrong end of a colon, halting the patient’s ability to pass gas or excrete waste, a Florida Department of Health administrative complaint says.
Melbourne Dr. Scott Zenoni has been licensed in Florida since Nov. 26, 2013, according to his online state license profile. Zenoni is board certified by the American Board of Surgery in surgery and surgical critical care.
An administrative complaint starts the disciplinary process that can end with anything from just a letter of concern to a license revocation. As this is Zenoni’s first disciplinary action against his license, any punitive action would likely be an assignment to continuing medical education classes on wrong-site surgeries along with a letter of concern and/or a fine.
Zenoni didn’t respond to an email from the Miami Herald asking for comment.
The complaint says “M.W.” went into a hospital Sept. 30, 2020, with a sacral wound — a skin wound near the lower back — that wasn’t healing and was, the complaint said, “exacerbated by contamination with feces.”
Zenoni’s Oct. 8, 2020 operation would be a “diverting colostomy procedure that would divert the fecal steam and allow the sacral wound to heal.”
But, the complaint says, “during the procedure, [Zenoni] inadvertently diverted the wrong end of Patient M.W.’s colon. [Zenoni] diverted the distal end of the colon, the downstream end, when he should have diverted the proximal end, the upstream end of the colon.”
This mistake, the complaint said, meant M.W. “failed to pass gas, failed to have bowel movements and became distended.”
CT imaging revealed the problem 12 days after the original operation. The complaint says Zenoni performed an operation correcting the error and addressing the resulting problems on Oct. 21, 2020.
This story was originally published September 17, 2022 at 1:22 PM.
