Thomas Shaknovsky

Introduction

Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky is a Florida osteopathic surgeon whose Alabama medical license was stripped away after a 2024 operation in which he allegedly removed a patient’s liver instead of the patient’s spleen, a catastrophic error that led to the patient’s death on the operating table . The patient, 70-year-old William “Bill” Bryan of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, had traveled to the Florida Panhandle and undergone what was meant to be a routine splenectomy at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast in Miramar Beach on August 21, 2024 . Alabama regulators suspended Shaknovsky’s license that October, saying his continued practice “may constitute an immediate danger to his patients and the public,” and he surrendered the license entirely that November .

Background Information

Shaknovsky had been licensed to practice medicine in Alabama since 2016 while working as a surgeon in Florida . The case against him began when Bryan and his wife Beverly, a retired nurse, were visiting their rental property in Destin, Florida, on August 19, 2024, and Bryan felt pain on his left side. Beverly later said a doctor at the medical facility diagnosed a spleen issue and insisted on performing surgery, and that when she tried to have her husband transported back to Alabama for the operation, she was told he would “bleed to death” if he was moved .

Florida health authorities subsequently documented a second alleged surgical disaster in Shaknovsky’s past. According to documents from the State of Florida Department of Health, he was accused of a botched surgery on May 12, 2023, in which a 58-year-old man scheduled for adrenal gland surgery had a portion of his pancreas removed instead — an error the operative report allegedly papered over by documenting that the left adrenal gland had been removed, with the truth emerging only when a pathologist reviewed the tissue a year later .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

According to accounts from Bryan’s family and their attorney, Shaknovsky removed Bryan’s liver instead of his spleen during the August 21, 2024 operation, and Bryan died on the operating table after bleeding out . Beverly Bryan said a pathologist told her that a bag labeled “spleen” from the surgery actually contained her husband’s liver, and that a medical examiner’s autopsy then confirmed Bill still had his spleen . Alabama’s Medical Licensure Commission would later summarize the allegation plainly: the doctor “removed a patient’s liver instead of the spleen during what was meant to be a splenectomy, which led to the patient’s death” .

Florida’s Department of Health ordered an emergency suspension of Shaknovsky’s Florida license on September 24, 2024 . Weeks later, after the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners filed a complaint, the Alabama Medical Licensure Commission temporarily suspended his Alabama license, stating in its order that his continuation in practice “may constitute an immediate danger to his patients and the public” . On November 25, 2024, the Commission announced that Shaknovsky had surrendered his Alabama medical license altogether, closing off the second state where he had been authorized to operate . The allegations against Shaknovsky are exactly that — allegations and regulatory findings made before any criminal adjudication — and this page reflects what regulators and reporters documented, not a courtroom verdict.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The case drew regional attention across Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, both because of the sheer scale of the alleged error — the removal of an entire organ, the wrong one — and because the victim was an Alabama man operated on hundreds of miles from home. “Our duty is to ensure that physicians licensed in Alabama meet the highest standards of patient care and professionalism,” said William M. Perkins, executive director of the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners. “When a physician’s actions jeopardize patient safety, we act decisively to safeguard the public” .

The Alabama Commission’s decision to accept the full surrender of the license came after it had already described Shaknovsky as a potential immediate danger to patients in its October suspension order, language that regulator rarely applies and that effectively ended any argument that he should keep practicing in the state .

Current Status

Shaknovsky has no Alabama medical license: the Commission accepted the full surrender of it on November 25, 2024, and his Florida license was under an emergency suspension ordered that September . Alabama regulators had scheduled a hearing for December 18, 2024 to determine whether the license should be revoked, but the surrender resolved his authorization to practice in the state before that step . No criminal charges against Shaknovsky are reported in the sources available for this page, and the account of the surgery rests on the family’s account, autopsy findings as reported, and state regulatory documents.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The double suspension and surrender ended Shaknovsky’s ability to practice surgery in both states where he held licenses, transforming a working surgeon into a former one within three months of the operation that killed William Bryan. For Bryan’s family, the case became a fight for accountability that outlasted the regulatory process, with his widow recounting publicly how a treatable spleen condition turned fatal far from home and how the organ returned from pathology told the real story . The 2023 pancreas allegation, documented by Florida health officials in the suspension order, looms over the record as evidence the fatal operation was not an isolated mistake but the second catastrophic wrong-organ surgery attributed to the same surgeon in as many years .

Sources

• Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, “Alabama Suspends Medical License of Florida Doctor Accused of Fatal Surgical Error” — source
• WAFF 48, “Florida doctor accused of fatal surgical mistake surrenders Alabama medical license” — source
• WHNT via Yahoo News, “Doctor accused of killing Muscle Shoals man in botched surgery surrenders Alabama medical license” — source