Who would ever think that 9 months after having a bunion removed by a podiatrist, they'd be dead from a failure to diagnose and treat a bone infection?

That's exactly what happened to this woman. She kept going back to her foot doctor complaining of pain, swelling, redness. The doctor kept removing dead tissue surrounding the wound which never healed. He never considered the possibility that this patient had osteomyelitis, which is an infection in the bone. The podiatrist had plenty of opportunity to send the patient to an infectious disease specialist or to another doctor for a second opinion. The problem was, he failed to recognize the significance of her postoperative wound infection and did not realize how bad it was until it was glaring and any layperson would have seen how severe it was.

This woman's death was entirely preventable had this doctor recognized his limitations and that this wound was not healing.