The Wrong Hip

And I thought that I was having a bad day. One of our surgeons operated on the wrong hip. With all of the safeguards in place you wouldn't think that could happen, but it did.

The patient several years ago had bilateral hip replacements. There is a lifetime risk of infection with artificial components inside the body, and unfortunately this guy got unlucky and his left hip became infected. Antibiotics don't work well in situations like this, so there was no choice but to remove the infected hardware. After months of IV antibiotics, the hardware can then be replaced.

On the day of surgery, the guy arrived at the hospital and his right hip was also red and swollen. The doctor got an additional consent to do an incision and drainage on the right hip.

At some point, the surgeon and everyone else in the OR got confused. After he removed the pus from the right hip, he forgot that the consent was to remove the hardware in the left hip and the pus in the right hip. He went ahead and removed the hardware in the right hip and totally forgot about the left hip.

Fortunately for the surgeon, the right hip was also infected and the hardware did need to be removed, so the patient doesn't have much in the way of damages. It is, however, battery because there was no consent for the procedure that the doctor did. At some future date, the patient has to go back to OR and have the hardware from the remaining hip removed.

The doctor's OR report is kind of interesting. He makes it sound like he did what he was supposed to do. A consultant in the case also wrote in the chart as though everything went as planned. We all know the truth, though.

I don't know what the patient knows. The patient doesn't speak much English and isn't well educated, so nothing will likely come of this.

I bet the surgeon doesn't feel like coming to work on Monday. The administrators will be waiting for him.