The head of orthopedic surgery at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital has his chart full: Four of his patients have died since 2008 and he’s racked up 10 malpractice suits during his career, records reviewed by The Post show.
Dr. Ira Kirschenbaum, 60, was brought on to head the department in 2008, despite his less-than-stellar record, in an attempt to boost the medical center’s number of lucrative hip and knee replacements, sources said.
Three weeks after Kirschenbaum arrived, Osciena Chester, a 57-year-old Bronx resident with diabetes and kidney disease, was admitted with a dislocated hip in need of surgery.
The doctor delayed doing the procedure for 14 days and never saw his patient after the April 1, 2008, operation despite her suffering complications, including an infected ulcer on her foot, according to a complaint made to the state about Kirschenbaum’s treatment of Chester and six other patients.
The ulcer grew worse “because the patient could not be mobilized due to the absence of information regarding wound management and weight bearing from Dr. Kirschenbaum,” the complaint says. Chester died on May 7, 2008.
Two more of Kirschenbaum’s patients died within the next month, and by the beginning of October 2008 there was a fourth — an alarming pattern that prompted complaints not only to the state but to hospital officials, sources told The Post.
But Bronx-Lebanon took no action against Kirschenbaum.
In fact, it hired him despite the fact that he had three malpractice settlements against him, one closed case and two more pending suits. He was recruited by hospital president Miguel Fuentes over the objections of the chief of surgery, who was not allowed to vet him.
“I told Fuentes I could not sign off on a surgeon I didn’t even meet and had no idea how safe he was,” Dr. John Cosgrove, who left Bronx-Lebanon in 2013, told The Post.
Three Bronx-Lebanon patients, along with a patient from another hospital, have since sued and he has continued to generate complaints about his care.
Seven hospital staffers recently sent an anonymous letter to a state medical disciplinary panel, a copy of which was sent to The Post, about Kirschenbaum’s allegedly poor patient care.
Yet Bronx-Lebanon continues to stand by the $1-million-a-year surgeon. The hospital’s lawyer called him “a respected member of the medical staff.”
One of his patients, Frank Vega of The Bronx, tells a different story, according to a malpractice suit filed earlier this year. He was left with a joint that would not move after 2014 knee-replacement surgery, according to his lawyer.
“He couldn’t bend his knee at all even with therapy,” lawyer Giulio Frasciello said.
Two operations Kirschenbaum did in 1997 prompted his first malpractice suits. A hip surgery allegedly resulted in the patient’s legs being different lengths and a knee replacement allegedly caused an infection. The hip case was settled in 2004 for $115,000 and the knee suit in 2002 for $7,500, according to insurance records seen by The Post.
A suit over a botched 2001 knee replacement was settled for $250,000 in 2006, records show.
State law requires doctors to report malpractice settlements to the Health Department. If there are at least three malpractice settlements in the previous 10 years, that will be noted on the doctor’s profile page on the DOH Web site.
But a screenshot of Kirschenbaum’s online DOH profile from 2008 obtained by The Post does not show any malpractice settlements. DOH would not comment on the apparent lapse.
Kirschenbaum came to a hospital that treats mostly poor patients and receives most of its funding from Medicaid. Yet executives are often paid fat bonuses. In his first full year at Bronx-Lebanon, in 2009, his bonus came to $275,000.
Shortly after taking over as orthopedics chairman, Kirschenbaum began a study of bone infections in patients, documents show. The study would involve taking bone biopsies — which could be charged as separate surgical procedures — but Kirschenbaum did not get the required approval from the hospital’s research review board, according to the complaint to the state.
The complaint also notes that Kirschenbaum treated 77-year-old Roberto Diaz, who broke his thigh bone on May 20, 2008. Diaz died on June 10, 2008, due to complications from an intestinal infection, according to his family.
Kirschenbaum previously told The Post that the state Office of Professional Medical Conduct had looked into the deaths and found no wrongdoing. He said the patients had been sick with other conditions.
When asked previously about three pending malpractice suits against him, he said, “In the last 30 years, that’s pretty good.” He did not mention the other cases.
Last week, Kirschenbaum denied that he had failed to visit patients after operating on them. He referred further comment to the hospital’s spokesman.
Neither the spokesman nor the hospital’s lawyer returned requests for comment.