Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and Brooke Baldwin discuss tragic case of a 13 year old girl in California who went in for a tonsillectomy and ended up brain dead from complications. Though doctors have pronounced her deceased, her family fights to keep her on life support.
I am a retired otolaryngologist and qualified to comment on brain injury following tonsillectomy for sleep apnea. This is known, rather well known complication because the patient was also over weight. That is why she was placed at intensive care unit after surgery, patient does not require intensive care post tonsillectomy in general. However, obviously even after her surgery she went into "apnea" and was poorly monitored resulting in bad outcome. Incidentally I watch your news daily and enjoy it very much. K. Wooh, M.D., NYC