Doctors and medical specialists are miracle workers, right? And when we go to hospital, we'll leave healthier than when we arrived, right? Well, not always, unfortunately, as accidents can happen and modern medicine isn't immune to Murphy's Law.
So, what are the most terrifyingly medical blunders that could happen to you?
Waking During Surgery
Waking during surgery is rare, but "rare", according to The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), means 1 to 2 people out of every 1000 patients. All up, you're much more likely to be sliced open without being able to move or communicate than you are to win the lottery.
There are machines available that measure brain-wave activity and self-awareness in patients, but the ASA recently passed a recommendation that there was "insufficient evidence to justify a requirement that these devices be used."
Objects Left In The Body After Surgery
This phenomenon is pure gold for the tabloid press, and it seems there's no end to the number of patients reporting how surgeons left scissors, gauze, and other bits and pieces inside their bodies. As it turns out, leaving medical apparatus inside the body cavity is one of the most common blunders that can happen to a patient. So, always have a good prod of your body post-surgery, or if you're really worried, go and get an X-ray.
Wrong Site Surgery
The problem of surgeons operating on the wrong body location, amputating healthy limbs, or operating on the wrong body altogether, is apparently "getting worse," according to Denis O'Leary, head of the non-profit Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Frighteningly, hospitals are not obliged to reveal such statistics to the public. What we hear about is "just the tip of the iceberg," according to O'Leary, who adds that; "some hospitals are reporting everything, and some hospitals don't report anything at all."