In a lawsuit filed yesterday, a Camden County woman accused her orthopedic surgeon of "rubbing a temporary tattoo of a red rose" on her belly while she was under anesthesia.
The patient discovered the tattoo below the panty line the next morning, when her husband was helping her get dressed to go home after the operation for a herniated disc, her attorney, Gregg A. Shivers, said in a phone interview yesterday.
The doctor's attorney, Agre, who had seen neither the board complaint nor the lawsuit, said the doctor had "never been accused of anything."
"Most of the patients are delighted by Dr. Kirshner's sense of humor," he said, adding that the 51-year-old surgeon who lives in Lumberton and did his medical training at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia is "renowned as a jovial guy and regarded as a doctor who has terrific relations with his patients and with his staff."
"He vigorously denies that any action of his was intended to offend the patient," Agre said, noting that the marks the surgeon has left on his patients "are like children's tattoos. Kids put them on themselves and they wash right off."
Full story.
Pharma Law's opinion: Only in the U.S. . . .
