Okay, I’ve heard of doctors performing surgeries on the wrong limb. I’ve had friends who made sure to mark, with a sharpie, which ACL to repair when they went under.
But gosh, I’ve never heard of a doctor doing it twice. Kenneth Gray, a doctor from Radford, was reprimanded and fined $5,000 for performing surgery on the wrong knee of one patient and then again on the wrong hip of another patient. Talk about dyslexic.
The mistakes happened one year apart, in December of 2002 and then again in December of 2003.
After initial surgery on an incorrect knee, Gray said he made changes in his surgical procedure to stop wrong-site surgery. Then the 86-year-old woman came along and had to under go the same surgery on both hips – only one of them was fractured.
Here are some tips patients can use to prevent wrong-site surgery from The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCHAO), a not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits 15,000 health care programs throughout the U.S.
- You and your surgeon should agree on exactly what will be done during the operation.
- Ask to have the surgical site marked with a permanent marker and to be involved in marking the site. This means that the site cannot be easily overlooked or confused (for example, surgery on the right knee instead of the left knee).
- Ask questions. You should speak up if you have concerns. It’s okay to ask questions and expect answers that you understand.
- Think of yourself as an active participant in the safety and quality of your health care. Studies show that patients who are actively involved in making decisions about their care are more likely to have good outcomes.
And here is an article in The Washington Post from October 2006 on wrong-site surgery. The article notes that, in fact, surgery in the wrong area or even on the wrong person is much more common than we might think. And how about going in for circumcision but having your testicles removed? Yowsers.
The below chart is from JCAHO and shows an increase in wrong-site surgery over the past decade:
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