News Tribune wins state award for Konasiewicz investigation
January 26, 2012 at 1:43 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Investigations editor Brandon Stahl and staff writer Mark Stodghill won first place in the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s investigative reporting category for their work on the case of Dr. Stefan Konasiewicz.
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Great reporting. They probably saved lives? They did save lives. He isn’t practicing in Texas, atleast no one can find him practicing. Thanks!
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Distinguished example of investigative reporting that saved lives and prevented family heartbreak. Congratulations!!
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Spock, I think you’re right. I’ve seen nothing but good things said about the DNT’s coverage of this story until now. It’s very suspicious that the first couple of comments went from being heavily liked last night to all of a sudden being hidden today. It wouldn’t surprise me if the nutcase John Strange, who sued the newspaper for publishing public records and interviewing people, then set up a kangaroo court to punish doctors and staff who were concerned about the health and safety of patients, had everyone at the hospital logging on here to censor people’s comments today. It’s truly sad how pathetic St. Luke’s has become in the last few months because they won’t just admit the mistakes they’ve made. Just keeping digging that hole deeper and deeper, Mr. Strange.
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Some investigative reporting, I don’t think so! Was there any investigation into the positives that Dr. K did? None at all! Your investigative reporting is taking a predetermined thought and running in a direction you want to go.
Make it sensational!
Put the blame on one person only, it has to be the doctor. Could the anesthesiologist miscalculated or the patient might not be truthful about medications or recreational drugs? I don’t think the nurse surgical assistant could forget an item in a surgical site could they? According to the reporting, the patient has nothing to be responsible for during their recovery from surgery, which is probably the farthest from the truth.
All complications must be caused by the doctor.
I know there are surgeries where the patient cannot be completely under anesthesia, such as an anterior cervical fusion, where the patient needs to respond to various commands from the surgeon. During those procedures a patient can and sometimes does move involuntarily.
I feel that the “Investigative Reporting” needs to look a little deeper. Has anybody ever died after visiting someone at a local hospital? The answer to that is yes! The questions DNT should be asking are, how many, and why? Those answers will amaze us.
I do know that without the skill Dr Konasiewicz, I would have a very poor quality of life.
I did not have Dr. K. on a good day, I had Dr. K. on four separate days that must have been good.
Dr. K. performed four separate surgeries on me including a laminectomy of L3-L5 in 1998, an anterior cervical fusion C3-C5 in 1998(my bone was used), and carpal tunnel surgery both arms in 2006. If he would have been in the area I would have gladly had him perform my posterior cervical laminectomy of C3-C7 that I had in 2010.
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That’s what the News Tribune does all the time and they’ve been doing it for years now. They take a topic, stake out a position and refuse to publish anything that doesn’t support their view. And they’ll tell you how you’re supposed to react to it, too. The News Tribune stopped being a respectable news organization a long time ago. Forum Communications needs to do some more housecleaning.
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Konasiewicz was sanctioned by Minnesota’s medical board for unethical and unprofessional conduct.
He also had settled eight medical malpractice cases out of court with settlement terms undisclosed. In a recent settled case, a patient accused Dr. Konasiewicz of negligence and causing permanent injury to the spinal cord. Five previous malpractice cases that Dr. Konasiewicz and St. Luke’s settled out of court over the span of three years cost $3.2 million.
Rather than face the music in Minnesota Konasiewicz fled to Texas where lax oversight and a broken legal system allow bad doctors to keep seeing patients, turning Texas into a safe haven for dangerous doctors.
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Ok here’s my thing about this. I am not from here originally. Have never heard of this guy. Literally don’t have a stake in this. But after reading these articles over the last however many months, I have come to the conclusion that this has been a witch hunt with some really sorry reporting. This award is a joke.
I kept wanting to hear the other side and never got it. For example, it occurs to me that as a neurosurgeon he performed VERY risky procedures on a regular basis. So what are the national standard success rates of these procedures? We never got to hear how his stats compared with other neurosurgeons. PLUS, even if his stats were bad compared to others, was that just because he had the GUTS to attempt surgeries that others surgeons avoided just to pad their stats? It may be, this guy tried to help people that no other surgeon would even touch and yeah had some bad results along the way.
Let me be clear. I am not saying he’s a great doctor or hero. But we’ll never know because these sorry excuse for reporters didn’t give us all the facts. Congrats DNT, you successfuly ruined a man’s life. Let’s hope he deserved it. But we’ll never know thanks to you.
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Please note he was ordered by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice to have a supervising physician observe his surgeries and submit quarterly reports on his performance to the board. The Board of Medical Practice is an objective party with a mission to protect the public’s health, check out their disturbing findings here: http://tinyurl.com/7jzpzd8
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Yes, you are correct, four instances throughout his Minnesota career, of which, one the patient moved. I believe I mentioned earlier about a similar surgery. You might find out, it is quite common for an incident to happen during that and similar surgeries. I know of a few local specialists who should be supervised! I am very serious about this.
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Four instances?
I’d say ONE was more than enough to get this guy to do some kind of career change.
Guess some folks are happy if the odds are in thier favor, rather than having a guaranteed outcome?
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I would agree with you if he was performing surgical procedures that were as complicated as say….removing a wart, or lancing a boil.
My God, there is a cardiologist who I know has had two people die on the table while he performed angiograms within the last three years I believe. An angiogram is only a procedure and not a surgery. I guess that is considered to be acceptable in his profession.
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bac – what are the odds for those 4 people if he DIDN’T attempt those surgeries? Do you even know if other neurosurgeons would have attempted those surgeries? He won his most recent law suit because the guy signed a waiver. I’m guessing most do. You can’t sign up for a high risk surgery and then complain when you don’t get lucky. Again, what are the national stats on this? We’ll never know because the lazy award winning reporters at the DNT didn’t do their homework aka their jobs.
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No award for keeping Occupy Duluth in the news for well past it’s 15 minutes?
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And just what does Occupy Duluth have to do with this story???
Souplocker?
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They have not gotten any ink. Sad if you think about it.
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It is pretty ironic that the very story the News Tribune is sued by St. Luke’s for investigating and publishing….. actually won them an award by one of their industry organizations.
I guess in this case the free dissemination of important information won over the self interest of a business to keep it under wraps.
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