Assigning Responsibility for Gossypiboma (Abdominal Retained Surgical Sponges) in Operating Room

Authors

  • Naveed Ali Khan Department of General Surgery, Civil Hospital Karachi, Pakistan
  • Naveed A Khan Department of Surgery, Civil Hospital and Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
  • Khursheed A Samo Department of Surgery, Civil Hospital and Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
  • Amna Bhatti Department of Surgery, Civil Hospital and Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
  • Rekha Jiswant Kumar Final Year Student, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan
  • Maryum Nouman Final Year Student, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan

Keywords:

Surgical gauze, medical ethics

Abstract

Background and objective

Retained surgical gauze is a well known but less frequently reported surgical error. Several factors can lead to this mishap. It remains under-reported due to medico legal issues associated with its occurrence. This study was carried out to determine the view of health care providers at risk of committing this error regarding accidental abandonment of surgical gauze in surgical patients.

Type

Cross sectional study. Place: Civil Hospital Karachi.

Method

A questionnaire was distributed among the participants by investigators. The participants were divided into categories of faculty, surgical trainees and scrub Nurses. The responses of the participants were entered and analyzed on SPSS version 11.

Results

A total of 254 participants completed the survey form. Majority of the participants were trainees and scrub nurses.i.e.159 (62.5%) and 51(20.1%) respectively. Quite a few participants supported the idea of introduction of medical ethics in curriculum 108 (42.5%), active legislation regarding abandonment of swabs by PMDC 52 (20.4%), application of white boards in swab counting i.e. 80 (31.4%), and barring of surgeon if found involved in such accident 53 i.e. (20.8%). Most participants thought swab counting was practiced in the operation theater (195/254)(76.7%)

Retained surgical gauze is an important surgical error in terms of medico-legal issues and patient morbidity. Health care providers fear its’ outcomes and so standard guidelines need to be in practice to prevent patients and health care providers from this mistake and its adverse outcomes.

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References

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Published

2012-12-25

How to Cite

Ali Khan, N. ., A Khan, N. ., A Samo, K. ., Bhatti, A. ., Jiswant Kumar, R., & Nouman, M. . (2012). Assigning Responsibility for Gossypiboma (Abdominal Retained Surgical Sponges) in Operating Room. Journal of the Dow University of Health Sciences (JDUHS), 6(3), 106–109. Retrieved from https://jduhs.com/index.php/jduhs/article/view/1494

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 3

Section

Original Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Naveed Ali Khan, Naveed A Khan, Khursheed A Samo, Amna Bhatti, Rekha Jiswant Kumar, Maryum Nouman

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Articles published in the Journal of Dow University of Health Sciences are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium; provided the original work is properly cited and initial publication in this journal.      

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