STORM2K

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Medical Students Find Towel Left In Woman's Chest
Woman Donates Body To College

POSTED: 10:57 am EDT August 6, 2004

CANTON, Ohio -- For seven years before her death, Bonnie Valle told her family and her doctors she had an odd feeling in her chest.

The feeling turned out to be a surgical towel that had been left behind during a 1995 surgery and wasn't found until a year after her death, when medical students opened her chest cavity.



Valle's daughter, Jeanne Clark, says her mother donated her body to the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, Ohio, because she hoped doctors would be able to learn more about the emphysema that killed her.


Last week, Clark filed suit against the Cleveland Clinic, her mother's doctor, Jeffrey Miller, and his practice. The lawsuit alleges the towel caused serious complications, additional medical bills and, ultimately, her death.


Clinic spokesman Cole Hatcher said the hospital doesn't comment on pending lawsuits.

I just don't get how they can do that! Someone is SUPPOSED to count every suture needle and every sponge/gauze/towel BEFORE the surgery begins, DURING the procedure, and AFTER. Plus, they inventory the entire tray of instruments to ensure that everything makes it back to the table and AWAY from the patient. I can understand how a blood-soaked sponge *might* get lost in an open bloody body cavity, but with careful counting during the procedure, it's absence ought to be noticed. Then they could look for it and find it BEFORE closing up the patient.

Sheesh!

*shakes head*