Silpat said up thread that the risk of error is negligible amd that is becoming more and more true. However as you can see from the protocols being so careful now, wrong-site surgery used to be a huge, huge problem. The frequency of the errors is precisely why they now spend so much time trying to get it right.
For example, at one major, well known facility years ago, on 3 separate occasions surgeons performed a radical mastectomy on the wrong breast over a couple months. That’s 3 separate instances of removing the wrong breast in just a couple of months. I meantion this because some of the articles in the first post were old.
In the course of analyzing the root cause, they discovered 3 major reasons. First, the chart read left side or right side, which lead the surgical team to confuse their left with the the patient’s left. Hospitals no longer use directional terms any more. Second, they found that some members of the surgical teams knew the mistake was being made and were either ignored or were too intimidated by an overbearing surgeon to say anything. Hospitals took care of that by reorganizing so that nurses no longer report to doctors, but to the chief nursing officer. Lastly, as someone pointed out above, id’img the correct body part became mandatory and rigorous. Further to marking the surgical site, before the actual surgery many hospitals also follow a process of calling a time out, which means that just before the surgery commences, the team repeats to each other what exactly is being done amd where, so that if anyone disagrees, they have their say.