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Doctor Terminates Wrong Fetus, Loses License

A Sarasota doctor has lost his medical license after performing a pregnancy termination procedure on the wrong fetus.

The Florida Board of Medicine revoked Matthew Kachinas' license at a meeting Friday. The St. Petersburg Times reports that Kachinas was treating a woman who was about 16 weeks pregnant with twins in January 2006.

The woman had asked the doctor to perform a selective termination procedure on the male fetus, which had congenital defects. An ultrasound later showed that other fetus, a female that did not appear to have medical problems, had been terminated.

Kachinas told the newspaper that he thought he would be able to do the procedure "safely and appropriately," though he had never tried it before.

Kachinas also told the paper that he settled with the woman, identified in state records as K.M. A $250,000 liability settlement was paid out for an incident on the date of the mistaken termination, according to records.

K.M. eventually returned to Kachinas to terminate the second fetus.

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