My surgeon left something in me!

Practising doctor and lawyer Dr Virginia Lowe discusses a CT scan of one of her clients, which shows a mass that turned out to be wadded-up surgical gauze mistakenly left inside him during a routine biopsy. — TNS

When a surgeon accidentally leaves a surgical tool inside a patient’s body after a procedure, the harm can be severe.

The patient can suffer from life-threatening infections, organ damage and an additional surgery to remove the object.