Wrong Kidney Removed from Patient at Mt. Sinai Medical Center

In a terrible hospital error, the wrong kidney was removed from a patient at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. The prestigous hospital is under scrutiny after admitting that one of its surgeons removed the wrong kidney from a patient. Other patients were clearly shocked and upset when interviewed, and could not understand how such a grievous and obvious error occurred.

Nevertheless, officials at Mt. Sinai Medical Center say that the reason the error occurred was because the 76-year-old patient had two bad kidneys, making it difficult for the surgeon to know the right one to remove. Unfortunately, these so-called "never events" (meaning they are so easy to avoid that they should "never" happen) occur more frequently than any patient would care to know–in fact, they happen more than 4,000 times a year, according to a Johns Hopkins study.

The same Johns Hopkins study revealed that surgeons perform the wrong procedure 20 times per week and that doctors operate on the wrong body part 20 times per week as well. The kidney patient at Mt. Sinai had the second kidney removed and is now on dialysis. The hospital also tried to block cameras from filming outside the hospital on Friday and say that the surgeon has been relieved of his clinical and administrative duties until further review.