Leaving sponges in a patient during an operation is a feared complication. Surgery teams are diligent in performing “sponge counts” to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Plastic surgeon Ramona Bates talks about a recent study suggesting that there are sponge count discrepancies in 13 percent of surgeries. Seems like a high number to me.

Confusion can arise during trauma cases, or when multiple surgery teams are operating on the same patient:

I can see how the counts were sometimes off. When you have what amounts to 2-3 different surgery teams (neuro, ortho, and gen surgery) all working on a single patient at the same time, it can get chaotic. In times like that, you sometimes wonder if the initial count was correct. In other words, sponges, laps, needles, etc don’t have to be lost for the final count (end of case) not to match the initial count (beginning of case).