Introduction
Despite all the advances in medicine, surgery remains a risky endeavor. Patching a broken bone or transplanting organs may be routine for surgeons, but one wrong move can have disastrous consequences for their patients. Surgical errors can be as simple as administering the wrong medication, but these oversights often have life-threatening implications. Some of these mistakes were intentional — such as operating on the bad body part or denying treatment to save money — but many were entirely preventable.
What is a surgical error? A surgical error is defined as an error made in a healthcare professional’s care process that causes or contributes to harm to a patient.
7 Common Types of Surgical Errors
1. Wrong Site Surgery
In a surgery where the wrong part of the body is being operated on, surgeons often try to work around this by making only minor adjustments to their plans. Although these revisions may be insignificant, they are still dangerous. Suppose a surgeon is too hasty during an operation and attempts to move the incision too quickly or removes more tissue than is necessary. In that case, this can result in the patient receiving inadequate care.
2. Surgical Equipment Failure
The proper surgical tools are necessary to ensure that patients undergo surgery with as minor trauma to their bodies as possible. Doctors rely on these instruments to carefully maneuver their way through the body and perform essential operations. Sometimes, however, these pieces of equipment can cause a surgical error if they are not correctly maintained or misused. A typical example of this mistake is when surgeons accidentally use a scalpel instead of a bone saw; another is placing a retainer clip too far into a patient’s body during surgery.
3. Infection
Bacteria or other tiny organisms can cause severe health complications for patients if they are allowed to invade their bodies and begin to multiply. If a patient is not given the proper treatment after surgery has been completed, an infection could erupt, leading to further problems such as amputations and death.
4. Unnecessary Procedure
Surgeons sometimes conduct unnecessary procedures on patients, even when they know that the treatment is not needed. For example, some doctors will cut away a patient’s vein, believing that this procedure will make the patient more comfortable during recovery. However, these areas of tissue are not necessary, to begin with and can cause the patient to experience discomfort or even pain for an unreasonably long time.
5. Unnecessary Anesthesia
Anesthesia is ideal for patients to go into surgery without experiencing pain or feeling any other adverse side effects; however, sometimes anesthesia is administered before surgeons need to be sure that it is necessary. Before an operation, a patient should receive anesthesia once the surgeon is confident that it will be required. If a procedure is performed and suddenly needs to be stopped because of a mistake, the patient will go into shock and experience severe damage.
6. Untrained Surgeons
Unqualified doctors perform surgeries on patients who may not be in their legal age range or have entirely different medical histories than those of the patient’s regular doctor. For example, a pediatric surgeon who is too incompetent to diagnose a patient’s condition correctly has the opportunity to operate upon an adult patient. If the surgeon removed an adult organ when it was supposed to be taken from a baby, this could permanently damage the patient and undo all of the doctor’s hard work.
7. Lack of Communication
Doctors and surgeons are supposed to be experts in their field, so they know how to safely and adequately treat their patients. However, consider a doctor does not establish a relationship with the patient before performing surgery. In that case, they can easily miss vital signs that could indicate the presence of a severe medical issue. Even if this is not the case, many patients go into surgery already feeling nervous and vulnerable. A good doctor will seek out these patients and take the time to speak with them to put them at ease.
