The emergency intervention took place after the patient suffered a cardiac arrest just before a planned operation, after he had just left the operating room. According to the BBC, the surgeon, unable to find a scalpel, improvised with his Swiss army knife, usually used to cut fruit during his lunch breaks.
The patient survived, but internal documents reveal that the surgeon’s colleagues considered this initiative “questionable” and were surprised that he was unable to find a sterile instrument. University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust described the intervention as urgent, but said the use of a personal knife was “outside normal protocols and should not have been necessary”.
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Professor Katie Urch, the hospital’s chief medical officer, said: “In December 2023, a patient awaiting emergency surgery suffered a cardiac arrest before entering the operating room and required a immediate intervention to save his life. The team was able to save him, but it was agreed that these actions were not standard procedures and should not have been necessary. The surgeon reported the incident and the entire team analyzed the event to learn from it. »
The patient was informed of the incident, in accordance with the hospital’s transparency policy. The team quickly put together “emergency kits” and shared lessons learned during patient safety meetings. Although this incident led to improvements, the hospital emphasizes that the important thing is that the patient’s life was saved.
