22/01/2023
Why would a surgeon forget his scissors inside his patient’s body? What was he thinking?
You obviously have never attended a surgery. It’s not lack of attention, or stupidity of the surgeon. But abdominal operations (that’s where most of these cases happen), are messy. There are lots of organs in the abdominal cavity, that are able to shift their positions. It is very easy for a retractor or something to slide under something. A scissor and needle driver is usually placed on a magnetic mat on the patient, for easy acces. But if they slide of (easily missed if you’re wearing loupe-glasses), than you won’t find it, unless you’re looking for it.
It’s the scrub nurse’s task to keep track of all instruments. By counting everything. And a team effort to make sure the patient isn’t closed before everything is accounted for.
even so, it happens. Fortunately it’s exceedingly rare.
edit: as Gary correctly states below, almost always the count was correct (or believed to be correct) before closing. But sometimes, the sterilizations department put in an extra tweezers or scissors in (they’re also human), or a pack of gauze has one too many. They can slip by undetected, and then things can get left in. But it is, once again, very rare. With the rise of laparoscopic procedures, this gets even more unlikely. Fortunately.
~Joris Broeren~