Surgical operations can save lives and provide people with an improved standard of living. However, surgery is relatively risky. All kinds of things can go wrong, such as a patient having an adverse reaction to anesthesia.
Some things can occur during the surgery that medical professionals have a hard time preventing or predicting. Other issues are easily foreseeable and largely preventable with the right professional practices. Experts refer to certain mistakes in a surgical setting as “never events” because they should literally never happen in a facility following the right procedures.
There are dozens of different types of never events, but three types of never events are relatively common. Each of the three never events outlined below occurs dozens of times every week just in the United States.
Wrong-site procedures
To a patient, the location of a surgery may seem very obvious. After all, they may have lived with a bad knee for months and are acutely aware of which side of their body requires treatments. For surgeons, the location of the surgery may not be quite so obvious. Wrong-site or wrong-side surgical errors are relatively common. Surgeons might remove the wrong kidney or perform carpal tunnel surgery on the wrong arm.
Wrong procedure mistakes
Surgeons who have a day with multiple procedures on their schedule can easily become confused about what each patient requires. Sometimes, of surgeon may confuse one patient with another. This mistake might be due to similar names or a mix-up of electronic records. When a surgeon performs the wrong procedure on a patient, they may experience a variety of negative medical consequences. They may also have a hard time recovering enough to undergo the procedure they initially required.
Retained foreign bodies
Sometimes, surgeons finish the procedure and close an incision successfully. Unfortunately, they might leave items behind at the end of the operation. Retained foreign objects can range from clamps to gauze. Those items can cause physical trauma to the body or may lead to infection and inflammation responses. Patients typically have to undergo revision procedures to remove the retained object and may have a much longer recovery because of that mistake.
Surgical never events can drastically increase the cost of medical care. Patients coping with the consequences of a surgical never event and those grieving a tragedy in the operating room may need to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Holding a physician or facility accountable can provide financial compensation for the people affected and can even lead to a review of current procedures at a facility.
