How Hospitals Can Prevent Operating on the Wrong Limb

Almost everyone has heard of a person who has gone in to the hospital needing a procedure done on their right side and coming out of surgery with the procedure having occurred on their left or vice versa.  The fact is that hospitals and surgeons have performed wrong-side and wrong-limb operations and will continue slipping up from time to time.

No one wants to be the victim of medical malpractice.  Unfortunately, these slip-ups do occur (at a rate that may surprise you).  People may joke about the idea of writing "DON'T CUT THIS LEG" on themselves with a marker before going under, but it is this kind of forethought that can prevent years of pain and suffering.  

We are happy to report that Fairfax Surgical Center did the right thing and marked a patient prepared for surgery before they went in the operating room.  They took measures to avoid a wrong sided surgery.



Now that is the way it should be done.  Future surgery patients take note: if you don't want to suffer any extra due to an error in what amounts to coin-toss odds from an unprepared surgeon, you need to make it abundantly clear where the knife should go and should NOT go.