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Scissors left in after surgery
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| rabbitjoker |
A GRANDMOTHER who had 17cm scissors left inside her for 18 months after surgery is convinced she is lucky to be alive.
Pat Skinner, 69, said yesterday she was stunned when shown an X-ray revealing scissors wedged between her pelvis and spine.
She was rushed by ambulance to the same hospital where the original surgery was performed for an urgent operation to remove the slightly opened surgical scissors.
"I could have died at any time," said Mrs Skinner, from Hurstville, in Sydney's south.
"It's terrifying. My daughter said, 'If you had fallen over it could have been the end of you'."
At least two Victorian patients have had metal surgical clips left inside them after surgery in the past five years.
Victorian Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson receives about one complaint a year of either metal surgical clips or gauze left inside a patient.
"The hospitals may well receive more reports than we receive," she said.
Mrs Skinner, who is launching legal action, said she was still terrified to think what could have happened to her.
She had surgery to remove part of her bowel in May 2001, and suffered sharp pain needing pain-killers long afterwards.
"It was just unbearable," she said.
"If we went over a bump in the car it was just excruciating. The pains moved around my abdomen and my back and finally concentrated in my tail bone."
Mrs Skinner tried in vain to find a doctor
who would take her pain seriously.
"I was being told, 'You've had major surgery -- it takes time to recover'," she said.
A GP eventually agreed in October 2002 to order an X-ray, which revealed the cause of Mrs Skinner's 18-month torment.
"The radiologist was stunned, and so was the ambulance crew later.
"I lost even more of my bowel when they removed them," she said.
Mrs Skinner said the experienced surgeon due to do her original operation was called away for emergency surgery, so she was operated on by a registrar in training to be a surgeon.
A statement by St George Hospital in Sydney yesterday said it admitted a breach of duty of care. |
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| Dr. Z |
hahahhahahh!@#
how does one forget to remove a 17cm mechanical object from a patient?? |
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| E2EK1EL |
| that's some scary ass |
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| Rocco |
| quote: | Originally posted by E2EK1EL
that's some scary ass |
yea no joke... it freaks the hell out of me... something that isn't mine inside me. |
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| Callie5 |
| great timing... this freaks me right out.. i'm having my first surgery on may 3rd.... AAHAAAHHHHHHH |
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| Ub3rTrancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by Callie5
great timing... this freaks me right out.. i'm having my first surgery on may 3rd.... AAHAAAHHHHHHH |
haha! u better not wake up in the middle of ur surgery like I did!! u see some freaky ass stuff! And u dont have a clue of whats happening cuz u stoned out of ur mind lol... good times :p |
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| TrueToTheCrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ub3rTrancer
haha! u better not wake up in the middle of ur surgery like I did!! u see some freaky ass stuff! And u dont have a clue of whats happening cuz u stoned out of ur mind lol... good times :p |
That would of been so cool. |
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| aarontrance |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ub3rTrancer
haha! u better not wake up in the middle of ur surgery like I did!! u see some freaky ass stuff! And u dont have a clue of whats happening cuz u stoned out of ur mind lol... good times :p |
Dude, the anaesthetic they put you under will keep you under as long as you're hooked up to an IV. It's the job of the anaesthesiologist to keep you under by regulating it. I'm no doctor, but I don't think it's possible to wake up before they want you to.
And yes this story is damn freaky. They always do inventory before closing up, which is why I'm wondering how they forgot it. |
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| k0nk |
I'm not suprised.
In florida, they have 40-60 operations per year, on the wrong limb. |
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| Ub3rTrancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by aarontrance
Dude, the anaesthetic they put you under will keep you under as long as you're hooked up to an IV. It's the job of the anaesthesiologist to keep you under by regulating it. I'm no doctor, but I don't think it's possible to wake up before they want you to.
And yes this story is damn freaky. They always do inventory before closing up, which is why I'm wondering how they forgot it. |
Yeah u can... but i was only awake for a few seconds... then i passed out again... got to see my arm open and the docs working on it lol not pleasent
| quote: |
Study: 100 patients a day in USA wake up during surgery
By Robert Davis, USA TODAY
Anesthesia failure that allows a patient to wake up during surgery, paralyzed and unable to cry for help, occurs 100 times a day in the USA, a study reports Monday.
The rate is similar to those documented by previous international studies, but many doctors have long questioned the prevalence. This is the first time in more than 30 years that the problem has been quantified in U.S. hospitals.
These findings, and the results of two similar trials also to be released today, led the Food and Drug Administration late Friday to broaden its approval of a device it says has reduced the risk of patients waking up during surgery. The BIS monitor, which is used in one-third of U.S. hospitals, turns the brain's EEG waves into a number that can tell anesthesiologists at a glance how deeply a patient is sedated.
Another study of 1,200 patients found that using the BIS monitor reduced the frequency of surgical awareness by 82%.
Such study results are viewed as preliminary. "Awareness is clearly a problem," says Jeffrey Apfelbaum, professor and chairman of anesthesia and critical care medicine at the University of Chicago. "But these studies have not been vetted through the peer-reviewed process. We are all anxious to find a way to minimize the incidence of this problem, but we need to do it through sound science."
The makers of the monitor, Aspect Medical Systems of Newton, Mass., financed the studies, which are being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in San Francisco. BIS stands for bispectral index technology.
Anesthesiologists have led the medical profession in patient safety efforts. But many of them have resisted the use of BIS monitors, saying they do not need help determining whether their patients were adequately sedated. "They have their head in the sand," says the study's lead investigator, Peter Sebel, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine. "They say they have never had a case in their career. I think they may have, they just don't know about it."
His study of nearly 20,000 surgical patients found that for every 1,000 who receive general anesthesia, 1 to 2 people become aware of what is happening to them. Half of them feel pain.
"I did not feel cutting, but I felt tremendous pulling," says Carol Weihrer, who awoke during eye-removal surgery. "It takes a lot of torque to get an eye out."
Since her 45-minute ordeal in 1998, during which she felt surgical tools on her chest, listened to the music played in the surgical suite and felt like gagging because of the tube down her throat, she has become a patient advocate.
"It has been described as worse than rape or kidnapping in that you can't squirm or scream," she says. "There is no way to release your fear or your frustration." She and other patient advocates say patients should ask for a BIS monitor. |
Not cool
:wtf: |
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| Slag |
| quote: | Originally posted by aarontrance
Dude, the anaesthetic they put you under will keep you under as long as you're hooked up to an IV. It's the job of the anaesthesiologist to keep you under by regulating it. I'm no doctor, but I don't think it's possible to wake up before they want you to.
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It is possible. It's also possible to feel them cutting into you and you not being able to move or say anything. :nervous: :nervous: Too much TLC for me. |
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| Provitex |
| Yeah, Ripley's had a woman with the same issue once. |
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