Health
The recent advertisement supporting Dr. Michael Kaplan — the Las Vegas Valley urologist whose medical license was suspended for reusing single-use needle guides — sheds a faint light on a little-known truth. Although a medical device is labeled single-use only, it might have been used before.
Residents and business owners who want a say in how Nevada will enact provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have a chance to speak up several times in the coming weeks.
Lee Horstein remembers the phone call from Dr. Michael Kaplan. “It was after my second prostate biopsy from him about four years ago,” the 69-year-old retired businessman said as he sat in an auditorium at the Nevada Cancer Institute. “I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be good news when the doctor himself was on the phone.”
A technical bulletin has been issued to all health care providers, reminding them that the reuse of single-use only devices “places the health, safety and welfare of the public at risk for blood-borne pathogens such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.”
Patients who underwent prostate biopsies by Dr. Michael Kaplan could be at risk for blood-borne diseases that include HIV and hepatitis C, the head of the Southern Nevada Health District said Tuesday. Kaplan is accused of reusing medical devices that were intended for only a single use during the procedures.