I'm a 4th year medical student. I've had the misfortune of doing 3 month long rotations in surgery.
There's a procedure in place called the "Timeout", which is supposed to prevent wrong side operations from happening. The entire surgery team is supposed to pause for a minute before the operation begins, and agree upon the name of the patient and what the procedure is that is being done. In reality though, what happens is that people stumble in and out of the OR while the patient is already knocked out and naked on the table, everyone's doing something (resident putting the Foley in, medical student being scutted out, nurses readying the equipment, attending cleaning his Loupes, anesthesiologist goofing around with his Blackberry, etc.), while one nurse says "can I have your attention: this is X, getting an operation on his right Y", and everyone just says "Yeah, sure" without even making eye contact or stopping what they are doing. As I said before, I've had the misfortune of standing and retracting for 100+ operations, and nobody really seems to pay much attention during this "Timeout". Of course, the attending is also supposed to meet with the patient before hand and make sure that it's agreed upon what's going to be operated on before the patient gets drugged, but I guess things go wrong there as well.
I could tell you all kinds of stories about surgery, but recalling them just brings back too many painful memories. Suffice it to say, the surgery environment is a dysfunctional one, and based on my - far too numerous - 80+ hour weeks working there, I'm surprised they don't to more wrong site procedures. Oh yeah, and I'd rather be dead than ever have to set foot in an OR again, either as a patient or as a doctor.
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