Operating on the Wrong Site or Level
What is Wrong-sided surgery?
It is generally understood that the surgeon needs to perform the operation intended unless circumstances discovered during surgery dictate an intelligent change of plans. Doing the wrong operation generally means operating on the wrong side of the body or operating at the wrong level of the spinal column.
Wrong-sided surgery is uncommon and occurs even less than it used to because extra care taken to make sure the surgeon is operating on the correct side.
what is Wrong-level surgery?
Wrong-level surgery on the spinal column is more common and can occur for a number of reasons. The standard of care requires that the surgeon have the patient’s records and the images in the operating room at the time of surgery. Care must be taken to count the level correctly and if extra help is needed with special imaging techniques to do so, then it should be done. If the surgeon operates at contiguous level to the one intended and discovers the error during the surgery, he should perform the correct surgery at that sitting and act properly concerning the unintended level surgery.
How often have I seen surgeons tell the patient that they needed two-level surgery because of disease at both levels when a one-level operation was intended? This type of dishonesty is a breach of a doctor’s fiduciary duty to his patient. In evaluating such wrong level cases, a careful analysis of the damages caused may or may not lead to a negligence claim. I recently heard of a situation where an orthopedic surgeon operated and replaced the wrong hip. He realized the error during the surgery so he operated on the correct hip at that time. He told the patient that she needed both hips replaced and he billed for both.