Leadership at Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside Hospital allowed Richard David Heekin, a Jacksonville orthopedic surgeon, to continue his practice for at least a year after operating room staff raised concerns that his failing health may be leading to botched surgeries that were leaving patients with devastating consequences, according to allegations in court records that make up 365 lawsuits filed in a Jacksonville district courtroom against the surgeon and the hospital.
Those lawsuits and Times-Union reporting detail the fall of a formerly ace surgeon who continued to work through hundreds of surgeries despite concerns about his failing health, a decision lawyers representing former patients allege led to a stunning array of tragedy for the people he operated on: severed tendons, broken and dislocated bones, misplaced prosthetics, and the death of a patient during hip surgery.
By January 2020, Heekin’s work had drawn the notice of his peers.
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