While every surgery presents some risk, there are some operations that are so routine that success is expected the majority of the time. But too much confidence can lead to surgical errors like the one that happened to one Pennsylvania woman who needed surgery for macular degeneration in one of her eyes. The error that occurred truly never should have happened. The surgeon operated on the wrong eye, causing the woman to lose her eyesight and her independence.

While hospitals in general adopt safeguards that are designed to prevent situations where these types of surgical errors occur, there are still several instances where surgery is performed either at the wrong site, or on the wrong patient. In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Patient Authority is charged with the responsibility of reducing errors, and much progress has been made in this area. It's estimated that errors happen in one out of 100,000 cases, which isn't much consolation if the error was one that affected your life.

To prevent mistakes, the Patient Safety Authority established 21 principles that should be reviewed before an operation takes place. Physically marking the site where surgery is scheduled and asking the patient to indicate the site are just a couple of the practices included on the list. While many safeguards seem obvious, it is necessary because a simple mistake can lead to a serious injury or even death. While much progress is still necessary, the error rate has been reduced.

While operating on the wrong eye is a clear mistake, not all surgical errors are quite so clear cut. There are cases when medication allergies are not properly noted, or when a patient is led into an operating room even if his health indicates that he may not be strong enough to handle the procedure. Not getting enough, or getting too much anesthesia may also be an issue. While these errors may not result in life changing inconvenience, any unnecessary pain experienced, or extra time taken off work may be cause to look into what it would take to get your incident to be taken seriously.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, "Pennsylvania hospitals adopt safeguards against preventable surgical errors," Tom Avril, Nov. 13, 2012