Severe mistakes happen, even at hospitals that receive high marks from federal health officials. And consumers usually never learn the details of these errors. In a very small percentage of surgeries, doctors operate on the wrong knee or breast, and in rare cases amputate the wrong body part. But when a neurosurgeon operates on the wrong side of a person's brain, as happened last month at an SSM Health Care hospital in the St. Louis area, it is a unique event and a medical mistake of the highest order.
