Lawsuit: Doctor cut off ‘significant portion’ of newborn’s penis

http://timesleader.com/news/637695/suit-doctor-cut-off-significant-portion-of-newborns-penis

By Joe Dolinsky - Click for more information on Joe
jdolinsky@timesleader.com - @@JoeDolinskyTL - 570-991-6110
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FEBRUARY 24TH, 2017

WILKES-BARRE — A pediatrician cut off a “significant portion” of a newborn’s penis during a circumcision procedure last summer at Lehigh Valley Hospital Hazleton, permanently scarring and disfiguring him, according to a lawsuit filed this week by the boy’s parents.

The lawsuit, filed in Luzerne County Court, further alleges the boy’s parents were told medical staff had failed to transfer the partially amputated portion of their son’s penis on ice, and attempting to reattach it was “unlikely to succeed and could result in additional complications.”

The Times Leader Media Group is not identifying the victim or his parents due to the nature of the allegations.

The parents, from Nesquehoning, Carbon County, allege the hospital provided Dr. Stephen R. Glicken to perform the procedure on July 20, 2016, three days after their son was born. Glicken cut off a 0.3-inch portion of the newborn’s penis and had him transferred to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville for further care, according to the lawsuit.

The amputated portion, however, allegedly wasn’t packed in ice for transfer.

A urologist at the medical center informed the newborn’s parents that the condition of the amputated portion of the penis — five hours old at that point — would make reattaching it unlikely.

Subsequent to the “partial traumatic amputation of his penis, (the newborn’s parents) have been informed his penis will never have a normal appearance” and “will never achieve the size it would have otherwise achieved.”

The lawsuit names Glicken, Lehigh Valley Hospital Hazleton, Lehigh Valley Physician Group Hazleton, and the Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network as defendants, and seeks damages for negligence in excess of local limits.

A hospital spokesperson did not immediately return a message left Friday seeking comment.

Reach Joe Dolinsky at 570-991-6110 or on Twitter @JoeDolinskyTL