A board certified Orlando area urologist performed a vasectomy on the right side of a patient. But, a state complaint says, Kissimmee’s Dr. Dilipkumar Patel was supposed to do the vasectomy on the patient’s left side.
According to Patel’s profile, the Florida Department of Health administrative complaint is the first against him since being licensed on Feb. 16, 1982. The American Board of Urology says Patel has been board certified since 1983.
Dr. Patel returned neither a phone message left with his office by a Herald reporter nor an email to the address on his Florida Department of Health profile.
A vasectomy blocks the vas deferens, the tubes that are the highway for sperm between the testes and penis. The University of Virginia Department of Urology describes the “Conventional Approach” to a vasectomy:
“One small cut will be made in the skin on each side of the scrotum. The vas deferens will be pulled through the openings. The tubes will then be cut. A small piece of the tubes may also be removed. The ends of the tube will be sealed off with stitches, clips, or an electrical pulse. The vas deferens will then be placed back into the scrotum. The incision will be closed with stitches.”
The complaint says on June 10, 2022, Patel was supposed to perform a vasectomy on the left side of a 51-year-old man who had a vasectomy on his right side done by a different doctor.
“During the procedure, [Patel] conducted a vasectomy of the right side as opposed to the left side,” the complaint said. “A few hours following the procesure, [Patel} noticed the error and notified (the patient) that he had done a vasectomy of the right side instead of the left.”
