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do, he should end the surgery and leave the decision up to the woman shochet who did not properly review the laws, since they have reason
once she recovers.) to suspect that in the future he will again be negligent and feed the
There is another question involved here. Removal of the Fallopian populace unkosher meat.
tubes is a prohibited act of sterilization, as explained in the Shulchan (The Beis Shlomo argues with the Maharsham. He says that “sus-
Aruch (Even Haezer #5). Therefore, one should not do so unless the picion” means a doubt, and not a certainty. For a vague suspicion,
mass is thought to be dangerous. however, one cannot discharge him from his work. He would need
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proof that the servant is a thief, and in this case as well we would need
1 SuMMaRy and Conclusions proof enough to presume that the shochet is negligent.)
In view of the words of the Maharsham, if a test reveals that a sho-
One need not be concerned about very slight chances of danger. chet is not fluent enough in the laws of slaughtering, it is permiited

to fire him. Even if he promises to review the laws, the people of the
city can say, “We do not want such a shochet.” Thus it would seem that
in our case, the hospital administration can say: We do not want a
physician on staff who does not properly search the operating area to
ensure that no instrument has been forgotten.
However, when I asked my father-in-law, Rav Y. S. Elyashiv, zt”l,
this question, he said: Even according to the view of Maharsham, one
cannot fire a physician who forgot a hemostat in the abdomen. Unlike
the shochet who is likely to go back to not reviewing the laws, in the
case of the physician who left an instrument in the abdomen, we can
assume that it will never happen again. This is because laziness is
a trait that nearly all people are guilty of, and therefore, barring the
strict supervision of the beis din, many shochtim would not review
the laws. On the other hand, there are several reason why a doctor
would leave a pair of scissors in the abdomen. He might have had
a very busy day, or other circumstances might have caused the error.
Therefore, we can assume that it will never happen again, unless we
have clear evidence that the surgeon was not paying attention or was
treating the procedure lightly.
A G-d-fearing shochet and a Torah scholar told me something
similar that happened to him in the war of 1948, when, since there
was a great shortage, chickens were only sold to the ill or the weak.
Once, while slaughtering one of these prized chickens, the shochet
mistakenly put his finger on the top of the knife during the slaugh-
ter. He was very upset about what had happened and ran to Chazon

116 1 Medical-HalacHic Responsa of Rav ZilbeRstein Left instrument in abdomen 2 97

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