A surgeon at a crisis-hit NHS trust used a Swiss Army penknife to open up the chest of a patient because he claimed he could not find a sterile scalpel.
University Hospitals Sussex has said the operation was an emergency, but the surgeon’s actions were “outside normal procedures and should not have been necessary”.
Prof Graeme Poston, an expert witness on clinical negligence and a former consultant surgeon, told the BBC: “It surprises me and appals me. Firstly, a penknife is not sterile. Secondly it is not an operating instrument. And thirdly all the kit [must have been] there."
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The surgeon in the penknife case, who the BBC is not naming, was operating on a patient at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton when he struggled to find a scalpel.
Instead he used a Swiss Army knife which he normally used to cut fruit for his lunch.
The patient survived but internal documents show the surgeon’s colleagues felt his behaviour was “questionable” and were “very surprised” he was unable to find a scalpel.
The BBC has also discovered the same surgeon carried out three supposedly low-risk operations in two months where all three patients died soon after.
“Oops, I can’t immediately find the tools I need. Guess I need to be the badass hero of the day and MacGyver this surgery. In a hospital.”
Even that explanation at face value, there are a thousand options higher on the priority list than a fucking pocket knife. Like, use a dermatome blade. Or an amputation knife. Or an open edge of any of the hundred or so surgical scissors. Or dissect it open slowly with some ENT shit like a cartilage D knife or a sickle knife. Or just buzz it open with a bovie.
There are so many different ways to cut shit open in the OR using actual sterile technique (woo!). Even if ALL of their scalpels magically disappeared, that would be annoying for sure, but by no means a show stopper.
Using a pocket knife is some emergency tracheotomy out in the middle of the woods kind of shit. Like there are situations where using that would have been called for, but not in a hospital environment.