No surgical sponge left behind

October 6, 2010

I was observing an operation once when, near the end of the long and tense procedure, a manual count of the surgical sponges showed one was missing. The following few minutes were not fun to watch as the exasperated surgical team went searching for the wayward sponge. Leaving a sponge in a patient, which is easy to do because it soaks up blood and can be hard to see, is not uncommon although the estimates of this mishap range from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 18,000 operations. Patients who go home with a sponge can suffer later infection and pain. (Los Angeles Times)