Surgeon Mistakes - Wrong Kidney Removed

In mid March, a surgeon mistakenly removed a patient’s wrong kidney. While the cancerous kidney was left in place, the mistake was realized when the healthy kidney was examined by the pathologist. Hospital protocols such as a ‘time out’ before surgery and marking the body with permanent marker prior to surgery are universally in place to prevent such mistakes. However, in this case, a paperwork error prior to surgery predicated the event.

In 2006, a national healthcare quality advisory group, the National Quality Forum, released a list of 28 events that they termed "serious reportable events", extremely rare medical errors that should never happen to a patient. Often termed "never events", these include errors such as surgery performed on the wrong body part or on the wrong patient, leaving a foreign object inside a patient after surgery, or discharging an infant to the wrong person. These events are rightfully rare in occurrence.

These most serious of medical malpractice events are obviously tragic. In these cases, patients and their families would be advised to seek the counsel of a reputable attorney to assist them in navigating the resolution of such events.