"After 120 years of experience regarding informed consent in America, how can we still be sitting in a place where it's not mandated that patients be told upfront and in writing, WHO will be performing their surgery?"
-Heather Steiger
We want learners of all types to have access to vital information, including learners who do best through listening. Over the course of the next few months, each page will have an accompanying video. I'll read everything aloud, while you follow along on the screen. We hope this will be one additional way we can help our readers sort through the content and complexity. We have a lot to do prior to recording our videos, but know they're in the near future.
Our names are Todd and Heather Steiger. We're from Cincinnati, OH and are the loving parents of three children. After learning our son became a victim of a ghost surgery at The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, we've made it our mission to inform the public of so many things they don't know...things we didn't know even though we had an 11 year old profoundly disabled son who'd had a plethora of surgeries due to a genetic condition. What you'll learn will be educational and prevent you from becoming a victim. You'll feel empowered, fueled by new knowledge that will help you educate others.
While we plug away through legal angles, government officials, different organizations, local and national media, we need a few things from you. Become informed. Read and learn. Share this site with a relative, colleague, neighbor or friend if they have an upcoming surgery, especially if it's happening at a teaching hospital.
Most importantly, do NOT be scared of teaching hospitals. These places employ some of the best surgeons and specialists in the world. Millions of successful surgeries take place in these institutions daily. These vital establishments bring scholars, science and medicine together...a mixture which has and will keep the United States on the cutting edge of medicine. The only thing you need to be scared of is staying uninformed.
Use of Our Website and Printable Products
The creators of this website are two parents who love their profoundly disabled son Jack. He was a victim of ghost surgery in November of 2019. It was concerning to us that after our son had 32 hospital admissions, 101 days inpatient and 92 procedures, we'd never heard the term "ghost surgery" until it happened to our son. We had an epiphany. If the term was new to us, then what were the chances the rest of the public knew about the practice and term?
We spent months reading and learning, navigating hospital systems and understanding laws, standards and protocol. Once that knowledge was obtained through hundreds of hours of hard work, there was no way we could keep it to ourselves. Education, awareness and sharing resources is the only way we can help prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.
Jack's dad, Todd, has been a software engineer for 23 years. Jack's mom, Heather, has been a second grade teacher for 18 years. We've never taken a college course in law or medicine and aren't experts in either subject. We are intelligent, readers, researchers and have always used credible and reliable resources to gather information related to all subjects related to ghost surgeries including the laws, standards, protocols, documentation, forms and policies.
The information supplied on this website is to be used as a springboard for patient education and research. Any and all information from this website may not be used as legal advice or as a legal resource from us. The site's purpose is to be used for patient education by housing educational resources that contribute to the topic of "ghost surgery" in some way.
We cannot promise everything on this website is correct. If we promised that and made a mistake, we could be sued. We believe the information and links provided are vital and factual, otherwise we would not post it. Terms of the site use and products are available in the footer of each page.