Remember your Last

Doing surgery on wrong location، or wrong person، or doing a different surgery by mistake، are all horrible، though not infrequent happenings. This is a report on an attempt to determine the incidence of «wrong-site” surgery among the Iranian Orthopaedic Surgeons. A one-page questionnaire، regarding personal experience or having witnessed or heard about» wrong-site«surgery during the last 2 years، was mailed to the active members of Iranian Orthopaedic Association (IOA). All the members were also contacted by phone to confirm the receipt of the questionnaires and request an earlier return of the forms. The returned forms and the telephone responses were analyzed. From the 736 questionnaires sent out to the IOA members، 54 (5. 7%) written response was received back. 368 (50%) members denied having personally faced or heard of any»wrong site«surgery. 313 IOA members (%42. 5) did not participate، and gave no answer – nor on phone، neither by writing. Among the 54 returned questionnaires، 29 members had encountered or were aware of 40 cases of»wrong «، surgery which included 32 mistakes in the side of surgery and 8 cases of wrong limb surgery. The response rate to questions regarding» wrong«surgery is very low in IOA members. Adherence to a strict protocole in avoiding wrong-site or wrong limb surgery may decrease the number of mistakes in any busy operating room.