Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky charged with manslaughter for removing man's liver instead of spleen

Bill Bryan’s wife said they never dreamed he wouldn’t come back from surgery alive, but how he died is especially hard for her to take.

According to Beverly Bryan, Bill went into to have his spleen removed, but bled to death on the operating table when Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky surgically removed his liver instead. 

It’s a case that by all accounts shocked the operating room staff, the public, and certainly Bill’s family who are still fighting for answers and accountability. 

Shaknovsky has been charged with manslaughter with the Muscle Shoals, Alabama man’s death and he’s facing civil litigation.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is out on bond. Beverly Bryan is concerned that Shaknovsky may skip  - not just town - but the country because he has dual citizenship and a passport.

We sat down with Beverly and her attorney Joe Zarzaur for more on this incredulous tragedy. Listen or watch our latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast on the case.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Starzar Law. I'm investigative journalist Molly Barrett. For years, I've covered the stories that make headlines in Northwest Florida and all along the Gulf Coast. Murder. Mr. Context. These cases are not familiar from many different. Because the Gold Story has yet to come back. Join me for the Gulf Coast Confidential. What I dive into the saltier side of the top. And expose the mind, greed, and corruption and often weighs down the tree. It's time to turn the tide and get a job. Hey y'all, and welcome to the Gulf Coast Confidential Podcast. I'm Molly. Hi, I'm Pam. And if you haven't already, we would love it if you would please like and subscribe. And remember, we'd always love to hear from you. Leave a comment or a suggestion about a case. We're diving right into a story that we've been following here in Gulf Coast Confidential for a year and a half now. You may remember on August 24th of 2024, Destin area surgeon Dr. Thomas Shiknowski removed the liver of 70-year-old William Bryan. An autopsy showed that Shiknowsky removed Mr. Bryan's liver with surgical precision. But the problem is that was not the organ he was supposed to remove. He was supposed to remove the spleen. And now Dr. Shiknowski is facing criminal charges in this case. Joining us now is Joe Zarzar, personal entry attorney for Mr. Bryan's widow, Beverly Bryan. They were a couple vacationing in the Destin area when this happened from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. And we welcome you both so much on the show. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Well, Joe, let's begin with you. Tell us about the charges that Dr. Shignowsky is facing and what this means for his criminal case and possibly implications for his civil case as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Second degree manslaughter, also referred to as culpable negligence. Some people know it as criminal negligent homicide. It's that area in between those two things where you may not have specific intent to kill somebody, but you certainly are not just being negligent, like in a civil case. Correct. Negligence is rolling through a stop sign. Recklessness or gross negligence, culpable negligence is running 65 through a busy intersection that you know you have the potential of hurting somebody. So that's the best way to basically describe that level of proof.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

And this is such a shocking case, I feel like, all the way around. When we first reported on it a year and a half ago, it just spread all over the world. I think it's just unbelievable to the average person that a surgeon of all people would mistakenly remove a man's organ and nobody can live without a liver. It's shocking.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Well, in being a healthcare professional, when I read this, I'm like, was everybody unprofessional? Was everybody trying to do the wrong thing? Was anybody there for Mr. Bill Bryan?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

I know. It's it's horrifying. And and even more shocking now, I think, to a lot of folks is that he is actually facing criminal charges because this is pretty rare, right, Joe?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, it's a it's a very unusual set of facts. I don't think there's ever going to be a more egregious case of malpractice. I mean, unless you unless you find a doctor, like a doctor death, um, that's intentionally killing people over and over again. Um so yeah, it's a very unusual set of circumstances.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Well, Beverly, I want to thank you for joining us. And you were the first person I thought of when I saw this come over the wire, and in fact, got an email from Walton County Sheriff's Office saying that he had been indicted for this manslaughter charge. What did what did you feel when you saw that?

SPEAKER_03 4:09

It was a huge relief to know that he finally has a criminal charge that would keep him hopefully if he's convicted from never practicing medicine again, never being allowed to hold a knife in his hand and cut somebody else open and and and do surgery on anybody else. The civil in the world don't don't stop that. You know, there are doctors that have all kinds of civil judgments against them that are still practicing. So it's it takes a criminal charge to be sure that he does not get a license in the United States again.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

And you think this is warranted, right, based on what happened to your husband?

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Absolutely. I feel like he's a menace to society and he needs to be taken off the you know, not just out of medicine, but off the streets.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

It breaks my heart for you knowing that you've had to live without your husband this last year and a half, and nobody was expecting it. I mean, we all know we're not gonna live forever. We all know we're gonna get older and we're gonna have health issues, but that was not a fatal injury. I mean, he wasn't experiencing something that was potentially fatal with his spleen. In fact, they they pressured you, is what it sounded like to me, according to Joe's lawsuit and to your account of what happened. They just kept on and on and on encouraging you to undergo this surgery with him there in Destin because you're a nurse. You wanted to go back home to Muscle Shoals where you're familiar, where your home is close and you know the team. That was a little bit of what I was under the impression of. Is that your take on everything? Like you kind of feel like you're pushed into that situation, and lo and behold, the worst happens.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

It's true. I wanted to go home. Um, and I could not have been more shocked. I never in a million years expected my husband not to live through that surgery. It never even occurred to me that he wouldn't live through that surgery. It was a spleenctomy. It's supposed to be laparoscopic. And I, you know, as a nurse, it I had taken hundreds of medical and surgical histories and heard uh, you know, at least half of them uh or not half, but a a great deal. A great many people say yes, I had my spleen out ten years ago, or you know, it's uh not an uncommon surgery and uh it's something that shouldn't be fatal ever. I've I've not heard of a spleenctomy that was fatal other than other than Bill's.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

It's just so interesting to be reading through this and to read the narrative there that they were coming at you like you gotta have this sur he's gotta have this surgery, like one, two, three, maybe four times, just like being a bully over and over and then throw in there the AMA or anything else they could do to like get you off kilter, because it is only what five hours back up to muscle shoals, and you are a nurse and he wanted to go home. He made that very clear to them.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

He did until uh Shagnowski came in Tuesday to uh he was very upset because Bill had not gone to surgery that morning, and that morning he didn't get breakfast, and that was the first time we ever heard surgery mentioned that I can recall. So it was a huge shock to us, and we were both, you know, di not willing to go through with him going to surgery that morning. So when Chagnovsky came in, he was angry, he was upset, and he said that Bill would bleed to death if he was moved and uh we could leave, but it would have to be against his advice, and uh he came he struck he was standing at the door saying all that with the uh the surgical coordinator standing beside him, and then he came across the room, reached over the rail, and pressed in very deeply, right over the uh uh left upper quadrant where my husband was hurting so bad. And my husband's head bent down, his knees kind of came up and he moaned, you know, really loudly, and Dr. And Shadowski said, You see how bad he's hurting, that's how you said, Well, you see how bad he's hurting. So, and then he turned around, abruptly left the room. After that, Bill within Well, first of all, he started saying to the nurse that was still in the room with us, he said, I didn't mean to make him angry, I didn't mean to upset him, you know. I'm saying I I hate I made him mad. And she kept saying, Oh no, he wasn't mad, he wasn't mad, he's just concerned about you. Um But uh within 30 minutes after that deep probe uh push on my husband's stomach, he said, You know, now I don't think I could move. I'm hurting so bad I don't think I could move. So at that point You know, I still wanted to leave, but Bill was not able. He was hurting too bad to leave after that.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

So we just stayed. Have you ever seen that before in uh all your years of nursing? I I've never seen it in pharmacy where you know you just keep asking somebody until you wear them down or basically terrorize them. Well, no, I haven't. Me either.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Joe, we've been getting a lot of questions in Beverly, I know you do too, and probably had the same ones after it happened, but you know, when it became clear that he had removed the liver instead of the spleen, and that he had basically intimidated, gaslit, bullied, whatever you want to use to describe what his actions were with the staff in that OR, they mislabeled it at his orders. It wasn't until other staff got involved that basically examined the tissue and said, no, this is a liver and not a spleen. The questions that I hear over and over again is why didn't the staff in the OR stop him, say something? We know from the depositions that you took, Joe, that people did say something, if you will, try to speak up, but short of just tackling him like he was a player on a football field, it seemed like he was determined to move forward. So the questions I get are was he incompetent? Was he high? Why didn't anybody say anything? Do you have any answers to any of that?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I took his deposition um and I asked him those questions that you're asking me right now, Molly. And the I was hoping to make this make sense. I was hoping he'd say, Okay, you got me. I've got an oxycodone problem, and I was on, you know, a thousand, you know, pills over the course of the last several years, and I'm an addict, right? That would make sense, right? That would it would make sense. Or I was just diagnosed with early onset dementia, and um apparently it has progressed to the point where I didn't realize how sick I was. Another thing that would make sense, right? No. So in his deposition, I asked him questions about substance abuse. I asked him questions about you know his his mental condition, his is there a disease or defect of your brain that could contribute to this? And he denied both of those categorically, absolutely not. And so all we're left with is this idea, and this was his defense. Well, in trying to save uh Mr. Bryan's life, there was a un well, there's an unexpected bleed that must have come from an inadvertent injury to his inferior vena cava, which why you're over there doing anything is beyond me, but okay. And because there was an uh this massive blood loss, all he could think of is I've got to take out this this man's spleen, otherwise he's gonna die. And he took his liver out. So the spleen was untouched, as you know. That doesn't make any sense, but that is what he's saying, and that is his official position in his deposition.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

He really didn't take responsibility for making any sort of mistake. Anybody would have done it. He you know, any other doctor would have done the same thing, and it it was not that he you know that he admitted any wrongdoing at all or had any real remorse for it. It was not his fault, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Basically saying he opened Mr. Bryan up, and because of his body habitus, there must have been an in an unintentional injury to the inferior vena cava, which caused massive blood loss. And then in trying to save his life, he thought he was taking out the spleen that he thought was the source of the bleeding, and it turned out to be his liver.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

That's just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah, that doesn't even make bad sense or good sense. You know, because I mean you have to go. Doesn't it all?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

I'm laughing only because it's so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

You have to go way far to tell that daggum lie because he basically, he literally did what we tell people don't phone it in. He wanted to phone in. I'm on my way, I'm Mr. Badass surgeon on my way. All you people stay scared of me. Everybody, I I've already been in there and punched the patient in the stomach right on where they're hurting now. Everything he can he cannot say, because he will not tell the truth. I'm basically got personality problem or issues or behavioral problems, you know, because if you are a surgeon or doctor, I got this thing right here. This is a fifth grade anatomy and physiology. Right at the top it says four kids. One is on one side, the spleen's on the other side, and the difference in the way that they look, the texture, the size, and everything, I would be ashamed before God to tell people I do not know the difference between the spleen and the liver, and I'm a surgeon, regardless of if there's blood in there. And you got all the people around, he wants everybody to be afraid of him.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

And just to accept what he says is truth. I mean, even to the fact that he said that the liver had, I mean, excuse me, the spleen had migrated to the other side of the body and was enlarged and basically unwell. Well, he was unwell because he killed him with catastrophic blood loss. But have uh Joe, in your research in Beverly, your experience, have you ever heard of an organ anywhere in the body migrating that would be like my heart going, I need to change a scene. I think I'm gonna move on down and you know, move over intestines. I'm I'm hauling duty down south. Have you ever heard of an organ just migrating across the body? Is this even a beginning of a plausible?

SPEAKER_01 14:31

No. And what what is plausible is genetic defects where your your uh your organs are swapped, like they're swapped side to side. And when this we heard this case for the first time, the physician that works in my office, he I can't remember the name this this genetic condition is, but it's some some some medical condition. He thought maybe there's a possibility that Mr. Bryan had this genetic condition where everything was switched. And and and so again, we're reasonable, reasonable people trying to explain crazy behavior, right? And so, and so, no, that was not the case. He did not have that condition. But as far as migrating over, Dr. Shagnowski believes that because Dr. Shagnowski in his deposition said, Well, I do agree that the liver starts on that side and the opposite side of the body, then the spleen, but Mr. Bryan had such a big liver that it actually extended over to the opposite side. So it wasn't all on that side.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

That's the craziest thing. It gets better every time I hear it. Yeah. Beverly, does this infuriate you? How do you what is your reaction when you've heard these excuses, not just once, but repeatedly, to your point, he's not taking responsibility and he's just building like a Lego block lie upon lie, is what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Yes, yes. He he lied in the chart. Uh, as soon as I read the chart where he says that he explained in detail about alternate treatments for the spleenic uh removal, which there there are alternate treatments, which probably would have been available it had we been transferred somewhere else, that you can the shrine is is removed under a fluoroscope. Um and when he you know, he just when he came out to tell us that Bill was gone and he started explaining why he said that Bill had died from a rupture of a splenic artery aneurysm. And I thought then you know, I think uh he probably saw it on my face. I thought, you know, you don't need that artery if you're removing the spleen. You don't need the splenic artery, just you know, clamp it off. So that you know, and when I would tell people that later, that especially my friends were in the medical field, they would they would look at me like I looked at him, I'm sure, you know, like well, that really doesn't make sense. He said that Bill's uh spleen was very diseased and four times the normal size and went all down the side of his body. And I asked him that night that he was telling me that. I said none of that showed up on any of his scans, any the the HANA CT or the MRI. And I think he knew that I uh had questions, and the next day we went back for the bedrooms walk, you know, where they draped the body in a flag and take it to the hearse to the hospital lobby. I saw some of the OR folks standing in the lobby and went over and asked them. I said, Were any of you in the room when my husband uh was in surgery? And one of them you know several of them said, Oh no, I was not in there and you know, scuttled away. And I was and I said, He said it was a splinter, artery aneurysm. And she said, Oh, I didn't see anything, I didn't see anything. And she turned around and walked away really quickly, too. So I had questions from the beginning, you know, it was not it was not anything that made sense from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And also not making sense is what the staff did or didn't do in light of what was happening before their very eyes. Did you have questions about that or wonder why they didn't speak up more?

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Well the thing about that is I think the blood loss was so catastrophic that nobody except him could actually see what he was doing until he brought that liver out of the body and placed it on my husband's thigh. And once they saw that liver, I think they were all completely in shock. And I mean the kind of shock where you just are speechless or are dumbfounded and don't don't have any idea what to do because you know, you don't have any precedent for it or any training for it or any you know, it's of course it was something that never happened before and hopefully please God never happens again. So I can, you know, I can see that they were they were in a very bad position, all of them. You don't have any hard feelings towards them, it sounds like No, I really I really cannot say that I do. I absolutely don't. I don't think they could see what was going on when it was actually happening. I think they did everything they could do to possibly save his life. And I think they were all as shocked and as horrified as I was after I found out. And they did question him. And you know, there were I don't know, ten at least ten to fifteen people that came out to the chapel and told me how sorry they were that my husband was gone. You know, they didn't I uh they have to follow the lead of the people of the surgeon. The surgeon is in control and in charge and they have to do what he says, and that's usually the way it w you know, it w works out well because the surgeon is supposed to be competent and know what he's doing, and everybody else is supposed to be there to help him. So their role was just so upside down, I think, at that point. Like I said, I think they were as shocked as anybody else has been over this. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, yeah. What what Miss Brian, what kind of baffled me is basically you're right, he creates the culture and you can't follow a parked car, but he makes it tense for everybody in there, and Kelly clamps were offered to help with this, that, and the other. When he's got his messiah complex going on, nobody can do anything but to assign people to carry on with the you know effery they just did, like make label this, label this, label this the liver, label it, you know, the heart, whatever. You know, I'm trying to think how I would feel and and you know, when we've done internships or when you have a a pharmacist in charge or surgeon in charge, that doesn't mean that you lose your good sense, you know, and it means you may not work there tomorrow. You know, it means I'm not labeling this the spleen because this is the liver. Exactly. So uh w what do you feel about that, Miss Beverly?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

I'm just very thankful. Dr. Blanchard, the pathologist, was uh uh conscientious enough to notify I think he notified the medical examiner about it. I think he I don't know that he he may have gone through the risk management office to do it. I'm not sure. But I he was the one who actually did uh come forward with the fact that it was the liver and not the spleen. And we've I I don't know if Joe has mentioned that we found out through some of the depositions that Dr. Anasky actually went to the lab, to the pathology lab, looked at the specimen in the specimen container for at least uh you know around 10 minutes, examined the specimen, went back to his dictation and dictated that he had removed a spleen. He doubling down on everything.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Do you think he really thought that in his mind, Joe or Beverly, or do you think that was just him keeping with the story that he already had?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Here's the problem with that. If I'm the prosecutor, this is this is what I'm gonna end my case with. Ladies and gentlemen, the jury, let's say you believe everything he said, right? Let's say you believe that there was a medical emergency that he didn't cause, that made it impossible for him to see what was going on. And let's say you believe that even though he had to dissect the liver in 35 different connections, the spleen only has three, um, and then he took out this organ that was four times the size of a spleen, and he still thought it was the spleen, let's just give him that. The the liver has a organ connected to it called the gallbladder, right? And if you have a a colosystectomy, which is a removal of your gallbladder, you then have the remnants of your gallbladder with a staple line that every general surgeon knows is where the gallbladder fits into the liver, right? If you if you have 10 minutes with the liver, you're gonna turn it over and see whether or not it has the gallbladder space, right? So if you have any question about whether that's the gallbladder or the spleen, and it doesn't cue you in that it because it's four times bigger than the spleen, you're gonna turn it over and see whether or not it has the connection for the gallbladder. Mr. Bryan had a colostectomy, he had a staple line where the gallbladder was that that would be easily anybody with any sense would know there was something there that was not there anymore. And and so, ladies and gentlemen, the jury, if you believe all this stuff happened, he then went back to his dictation and didn't mention the liver one time, only talked about the spleen. So, how do you believe this now?

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Impossible.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

I go with you. Well, this isn't his first time to drop the ball or to leave somebody there without part of the organ that he was going to remove.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yes. I Pam and I both thought that was fascinating when you started digging into his medical history that he had previous wrong site surgeries, and then also just the culture within that hospital environment and their other hospitals of allowing surgeons like Dr. Heakin over in Jacksonville to continue to practice when he had health issues that were severely impacting his surgical outcomes to the tune of hundreds of lawsuits facing. So all of that to me kind of plays into it's not just about the individual surgeon and the mistakes they make, it's also the environment that they're in and whether or not they're being held accountable. If he had made repeated mistakes, why weren't they flagged? Why wasn't somebody looking over his shoulder going, Hey, we just want to give you a quick quiz. Where's the heart? Where's the liver? Where's the kidney before you go in wielding a scapel? Um, so I guess my question in all of that, Joe, is, you know, is this going to be an uphill battle for the prosecutor to show this? I mean, I think we can certainly see from a medical standpoint that he made a catastrophic decision. But from uh a criminal standpoint, are they can he get by with just saying, you know, I just thought it was the liver and it wasn't? I thought it was the spleen and it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Well, I guess that was that was gonna be that is his position in our civil case, right? Um but when you start building all these things around the story that don't make any sense, like you had 10 minutes with the with the with the liver by yourself, not under the stress of the situation, not trying to save somebody's life, not blood everywhere, in a very calm, controlled environment. You sat there with it by yourself with the lab tech there, and you examined it, and then you went back to your dictation and said it was a natural cause of death, and you said the spleen was the cause of death. Okay, I don't think anybody on that jury is gonna be like this is a safe person to be out on the streets. They're gonna want to put this guy, in my opinion, behind bars.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

And I know that I know that he lied in the chart to I know for a fact that he lied about telling us that we could be transferred to a level of higher care. He charted that, he never did that, he never said anything about transferring us. I asked the nurses about being transferred, you know, can we fly or you know until Bill said he was too bad to hurt him too bad to move. And he charted all of that about how you know there was uh he explained the uh other uh radiological intervention interventional uh procedure to us. He never did that. All of that he put in his notes, and I know those were lies. I know they were.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

So I don't doubt that he lies, because I know he does. Oh yeah, it seems like he does for sure. I mean, you can just read one one narrative and then read another. I mean, the old me so stupid defense, you know, that doesn't work like with someone supposed to be a surgeon, but he created all this all day long, and it's what he does apparently, from what we've read. I mean, he he spent ten minutes with you pre-surgery, then after he removes the wrong organ, he wants to spend hours with you and send Bible verses and do all this kind of stuff. That stuff would have been good on the front end and to respect the decision. I just think we've seen this before in people that that do have, and I keep calling it that because that's what it is, Messiah complex, and you have created that your uh peers that are that you are over, they are afraid to say anything or uh uh you know, when you say something, let me tell you, anybody in that room would have said something or pulled his hands back or something, there would be hell to pay because he would have showed his whole tail.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah, and that's a great point. He should have. Yeah, he yeah, absolutely. And and Joe, you know, we were talking before we started recording this segment uh about anything that stood out to you about the criminal investigation, and and that goes back to another question that I've been getting a lot of is why did it take so long for the Walton County Sheriff's Office to decide if criminal charges applied before they did finally charge him with manslaughter? And it goes to what Pam was saying, peer review to a certain extent. They needed other doctors to weigh in on what he did, and they had difficulty finding those doctors, is what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah, so when you go to a grand jury, a lot of people maybe misperceive how the process works, but when you go to a grand jury, it's just the prosecution that goes before people that get jury summons, and instead of getting a summons to go sit on a petite jury, the jury that goes to the courthouse that hears the trial, you get a summons for grand jury duty, and you go to a grand jury room, and the only side that's there is the prosecution. And they have to put on basically their witnesses, and in a robbery case, all they're gonna put on is the store clerk who says he came in there with a gun and his he looked like this person, and he held the gun up to my face and said, Give me all the money in the cash register. Well, that's all you really need for a run-of-the-mill uh crime. But when you have a crime like this, you have to have an expert witness that comes in to talk to the grand jurors that says, You can't do this, ladies and gentlemen, the jury, unless you're grossly negligent, culpably negligent, right? Um, they have to have an expert that says that. What the investigator told me was when I asked him a couple of days ago when this news broke, why did it take so long? It's almost two years, for y'all to get to this point, right? I mean, we've got experts in our civil case. We had them the week le after this happened. He said, Well, you know, hiring an expert witness to testify against another doctor to put them in jail. Not just take money from a hospital or an insurance company, right? But to put them in jail is a whole different ballgame, and we couldn't find anybody willing to do that, even under these egregious facts, which should offend doctors, because everyone, every doctor I talk to, every surgeon is like, he did what? He's a disgrace. You know, they're all just dismissive of how horrible the the guy is. Until you, I guess apparently, until you say to them, Well, we need you to testify in his criminal case. And they're like, Well, hold on just a minute. You know, I don't know if I want to do that. So the officer told me it took that long to find an expert willing to do this.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Wow. Well, I'm glad they kept at it, but that's disappointing, like you said, in the medical profession. You would think they would be proud enough of their own profession, defensive enough of quality work to say, hey, let me stand here and and you know, be convicted and say this is not how you perform surgery.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Right. And we all of us in healthcare, we are there for the patient first, not us, not our not our peers around us. The patient should and the surgeon should be able to practice with reasonable skill and safety. And uh I I know from being an expert witness one time before about pharmacy where everything in the world was wrong, but I told them I will testify to the minimal standard of practice and take with that what you may. And I would believe as a surgeon, we don't take out the liver when we're trying to do the spleen.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

First do no harm.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

But I mean, they're not gonna do it because I mean, after a while, this fraternist and good old boys club and everything, are we racing to the bottom and punching down where nobody can go to sleep? I mean, I was supposed to have surgery this week and it got canceled, and I'm thinking, well, maybe that was supposed to happen. You just never know.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

I know.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

But I wanted to ask Miss Brian about after this had happened, did they pressure you about not having an autopsy or any further um research or or any further things that you would want to do?

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Uh they asked me if I wanted an autopsy and the nursing supervisor asked us that, and she had to come out to the parking lot to find us because we had already left the hospital. Um I didn't I you know, she came out and asked us and we discussed it and decided that we didn't because I really wasn't thinking very clearly then. And uh the most the most upsetting thing to me is the fact that he presents himself as a save, you know, trying to save Bill's life. That's all he was doing. He was just trying to save his life. Everything he did was intended to save Bill's life. And that is, you know, that he hasn't taken any responsibility for making any kind of mistake other than just oh he couldn't see well enough to to know what he was doing. And he's also saying that Bill was dead, not because his liver was removed, he was dead before his liver was removed. He's picking apart the timeline of when Bill's heart stopped until the actual moment that the liver was removed from the body, which he says when the heart stopped, the liver had not been removed, so that was not the cause of his death.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Well, if the heart stopped, why would he keep on doing surgery and stuff if you if going bad everything's out?

SPEAKER_03 33:31

That's what he kept telling us.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yeah. Well, that's that messiah complex. When you're the messiah, that's what you think you are. You think you're saving everybody's life. And I mean, this is just uh a great example of someone that can't listen to anybody else, someone that thinks that they know everything already. Since he knows everything already, why did this happen? And since he knows everything already, why is he in jail?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Right. I I yeah, I have a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Yeah. He is bonded bonded out of jail, I found that out today, and which really worries me because he is a dual citizen of um one of the Russian satellite countries, and you saying, Well, I you know, it just worries me that he will leave the country and not be not be actually brought to justice. Trying to find out from the district attorney's office now if they have taken his passport, which if they haven't, they really, really need to, which I've been encouraging the sheriff's office to do that ever since this happened.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

That's a great point.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Where do you think stand Joe on the civil suit?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

It that continues, especially against Chiknowski, because he isn't taking responsibility, it sounds like in his group, Genesis Care, um the case is still pending against them. And we're at the point now where we've finished all the fact depositions. We're now moving into the expert deposition phase of the case, and we're gonna be asking the court to set the case for trial, but we're also gonna be asking the court to allow us to um request punitive damages because we feel at this point um we have enough evidence to persuade the court, the civil court, um, that there's enough to base enough for a jury to f to award punitive damages against Dr. Shagnoski for his conduct. So yeah. We took all the fact witness depositions. I think there was I don't know, by the time all the code was called and everybody came to the OR, there's probably 30 witnesses to this. And we felt, yeah, we felt and and it was crazy, is one of the last ones we talked to who didn't have a lot of involvement, is the one that told us oh, I had to walk Dr. Shagnovsky down to the lab. For what? Oh, he wanted to see the specimen. And I'm like, wait a minute, when did this happen? Well, he came back to the room after everything was done, and he said, Where's this uh specimen? And the nurses said, We took it to the lab, and evidently he lost his temper with them. How dare you take the liver to the lab or the specimen? Why did you take it out of here? Like he was shocked they took it out of the room. I think he was thinking, Okay, I gotta go like do something with Mr. Brian's liver, because if I don't, it's gonna get taken to the lab. And if it gets taken to the lab, all bets are off, right? And so he gets back to the OR, it's gone. He then says, Take me to the take me to the specimen. So a nurse who he had not deposed because she would had nothing to do with the code, had nothing to do with the operation, but she walked him to the lab. And I said, Well what what'd you do? Well, well, there's a lab tech there and I left him there for 10 or so minutes, and he just looked at the liver, and then uh the lab tech checked it back in and um then Dr. Shaknowsky went back and finished his uh dictation.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

And she cautioned the lab tech to be sure that the specimen was returned to the container.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, she did do that.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Testified to that.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yeah. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Thank goodness for that nurse.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

I know. Well, it sounds like enough people were paying attention and trying to stay on top of it to do the right thing. Thank goodness, because it does make you wonder are there other mistakes that happened, perhaps not as catastrophic as this that aren't reported.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Yeah. On balance, the nurses really were uh they were taking up for Mr. Bryan. Good. Um yeah, and on balance, they were at that point in time, they were as traumatized as anybody else. I mean, it would be. They they they to this day are still traumatized by what happened in front of them.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Well, because nobody goes into the medical field. Beverly, I'm sure you can relate to this. I mean, as far as in my opinion, in my dealing with medical people, they don't go into it thinking, gosh, I hope I get to do a lot of harm. You know, I hope I hope I'm crappy at my job and I'm gonna hurt somebody. You know, they go into it because they do want to help or because it is an opportunity to to care for others. And I from what I read in those reports too, it was heartbreaking. You know, and I put myself in that situation as a journalist. Nobody's life is in my hands per se. But if I see another journalist writing something that I know is blatantly wrong that could potentially do some damage to someone, I'm gonna speak up and say something, A, on behalf of the person that's being written about, and also on behalf of whether it's the report or the organization, because you're proud of what you do, you know. But I I can't imagine also if that person you're holding accountable is somebody who's your boss or could impact your job or your ability to make a living, you know, then maybe you are not gonna you're not gonna sit there and like, well, wait a second, man, you're not allowed to take his liver. Right. So you're supposed to be going for the smoke. So there's only so much they can do, I think, in a situation like that, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

But it's because it keeps going on. If we would stop and go, I don't care who you are. You can be the chief medical officer of this hospital. If someone in the room, that's what timeouts are for. That's what in pharmacy we have our continuous quality improvement. And we call it an adverse event because it wasn't something you wanted. And we don't blame people and go, well, Molly, every time we do this one, you always get the wrong drug. No, people are not gonna say, they're not gonna learn from that. We say, what was going on? Was the drive-thru happening? Did we have an angry man out front, you know, breaking everything with a bat or whatever? There's usually a root cause. But when you are so arrogant and you are me so stupid that you cannot be told anything, it's only gonna get worse if we don't stop it because this is like a terrorist, a person doing that to someone. And I am so sorry, Miss Brian. I I can't I I get upset about stuff real easily. I can't even imagine what you've been through and what y'all are uh leading up to, retirement and having a good time and Alabama football and being up in the shoals and everything. I I am just so sorry. Molly and I've talked about this a lot. We both are very sorry.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Well, I think that wraps it up for us. Is there anything else that you think would be important to to add right now where we are with the case criminally as well as civilly, Joe and Beverly?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

I think it's always important to remind everybody that the allegations we have in our complaint are allegations, that the allegations in the indictment are allegations. And at the end of the day, our system is one that allows the jury to determine whether somebody's guilty or liable in a civil case. And I respect that as y'all do, and every Miss Bryan does. And we know that the jury's gonna do the right thing in the civil case, and we know the jury's gonna do the right thing in the criminal case.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

Absolutely. If I were the sheriff's office and the district attorney's office, I would be watching uh the airports for that man because I'm afraid he will try to leave the country. I really, I really think he he might.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Well, I don't blame you for being worried about that, Beverly. And like Joe said, innocent until proven guilty, like you said, allegations. But I will say this there are a lot of folks here on the Gulf Coast that are keeping an eye on him in unexpected ways. So if he does pop up at the airport, I have a feeling somebody's gonna let you know, let me know, let Joe know, let the sheriff's office know. There are folks that are watching him for sure.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

I I appreciate the district attorney's office, the investigation. Oh my goodness, the sheriff's office. They had to wing this. I mean, there's never been anything that they had training for uh related to this sort of thing, and um I really am appreciative of all their efforts.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Absolutely. And we're appreciative of you, your support of Gulf Coast Confidential, as well as Joe's support of Gulf Coast Confidential. I want folks to know that watch our show that you know we speak on behalf of victims and try to be a voice for the voiceless and those who are going through something that might not normally, you know, have a chance to be heard. And and we appreciate you both for for helping us carry that message and for and for fighting the fight in your own legal world, Joe, and and Beverly doing the same on behalf of Bill. So I I see the comments on social media and all the people that loved him. I know you've got a lot of support there at home. It must at least feel good to know that he was admired and loved.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

He was, and and I appreciate y'all. It's it's a good thing that y'all do. Well, thank you. Thank you. When we come very much.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

When we come up to North Alabama-ish, that way up there to the Shawls, can we take you out to lunch or dinner, Miss Beverly? Yeah, that would be lovely. We would love it too.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Excellent. Well, thank you both so much. I appreciate you joining us.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Take care, y'all.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

All right, you do. We'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Bye now.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Well, that is it for this update. I'm your host, writer, and producer Molly Barrows, with co-host and researcher Pam Hill. And a big thanks as always to our director, editor, and production engineer James Roy. Remember, you can check out more episodes of Gulf Coast Confidential, including all of our episodes on Dr. Shuknowski. One of them is called That's the Effing Liver, quoting one of the staff who was confronting him about the organ that he had actually removed from Mr. Bryan. So we have several playlists also called Doctors Behaving Badly, various other ones where you can live catch up on all the previous episodes that we've done on Dr. Shuknowski.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

About 20 of them.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

There's a lot. Well, thanks again, and we appreciate you joining us. Just don't forget to like and subscribe if you check out those videos, and we'll see you next time.