An NBC News report details additional allegations against a Northeast Florida surgeon already criminally charged in a high-profile fatal mistake.
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky was arrested April 14 in Walton County on a manslaughter change in the August 2024 death of 70-year-old William Bryan. A grand jury indicted Shaknovsky after prosecutors alleged he removed the wrong organ during surgery.
Shaknovsky, 44, pleaded not guilty and was released from jail on $75,000 bond.
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According to NBC News, Shaknovsky also operated on Dorothy Dorsett, 76, a Miramar Beach resident who died on Aug. 4, 2023, following complications from surgery to remove a tumor.
Both procedures were performed at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast in Miramar Beach, where Destin-based Shaknovsky had surgical privileges.
NBC News spoke with Dorsett’s son, Weyman Dorsett, who said he sensed something was wrong almost immediately after his mother’s procedure.
“I’ll never forget … the look on that doctor’s face,” he said, describing an intensive care physician reviewing her chart and “shaking his head, like, ‘What in the living hell is going on?’”
After the tumor was removed from her digestive tract, Dorothy Dorsett's condition quickly deteriorated, according to a lawsuit cited by NBC News. She struggled to eat, developed a rapid heartbeat and was eventually moved to intensive care.
“She just started really spiraling, pain,” her son said. “She was not my mom.”
Dorsett’s family had concerns about Shaknovsky before the procedure. Weyman Dorsett described the osteopathic physician as “odd,” recalling that he prayed at the bedside in a way that felt “way over the top” and “very insincere.” He said his mother also found the doctor “very weird.”
Despite being told the surgery “went great,” Dorsett said his mother’s health declined sharply. He recalled being called back to the hospital, where his mother told him she believed she was going to die. He said he then “had to sit there and watch her die.”
Florida regulators did not take immediate public action following Dorsett’s death but later reviewed her case as part of a broader investigation into the Bryan case.
The Agency for Health Care Administration found Shaknovsky and other physicians failed to properly use diagnostic testing and delayed imaging that could have helped treat Dorsett’s sepsis. The agency didn’t assign criminal liability.
A lawsuit against Shaknovsky and the hospital over Dorsett’s death remains ongoing, and Shaknovsky has denied wrongdoing in court filings.
In a statement, Ascension Sacred Heart said Shaknovsky “was never a Sacred Heart Emerald Coast employee and has not practiced at any of our facilities since August 2024.”
For Weyman Dorsett, the surgeon’s arrest brings mixed emotions.
“It’s bittersweet,” he told NBC News. “Nothing’s going to bring back Mr. Bryan or my mom.”
