At the mention of plastic surgery, most people probably think of expensive, unnecessary procedures performed on rich people for purely aesthetic purposes. Of course, there is an element of truth to this as the vast majority of procedures performed are still nose jobs and breast augmentations. However, the techniques pioneered by plastic surgeons have a long history, and those specializing in them have had to fight diligently just to be taken seriously by their peers.

As we will see, plastic surgeons have also been responsible for pioneering many life-enhancing procedures that go far beyond the cosmetic. But first, let’s answer the question that most of you likely have.

10 Its Name Has Nothing To Do With Plastic

The documented beginnings of plastic surgery techniques date all the way back to the 16th century when Italian physician Gaspare Tagliacozzi—who was himself copying techniques described in an Indian manual written roughly 1,000 years earlier—successfully reconstructed the damaged nose of a patient using tissue from the inner arm. But the term “plastic” was first used to describe these techniques in 1837—a good 18 years before the invention of plastic, the substance.

The term is from the Greek plastikos, meaning to mold or shape, and specialists in these techniques were initially far more focused on the reconstruction of misshapen or damaged body parts than cosmetic augmentation. By the mid-19th century, advances in anesthesia and sterilization had made it possible for more daring procedures, such as the original nose job, to be attempted.

Throughout this time, however, plastic surgery was not formally recognized as a branch of medicine despite its obvious potential. And while it is true that its early focus was helping those disfigured by injury or disease, we will take a brief aside to answer your other obvious question.

9 Breast Augmentation Has A Longer History Than You Think

The first successful breast augmentation was likewise reconstructive rather than cosmetic as the patient had previously had a large tumor and a portion of her left breast removed. German surgeon Vincenz Czerny used a good-sized lipoma—a fatty, benign tumor—from the patient’s back to reconstruct the breast, and it’s safe to assume that the attempt was only able to be made because biological material from the patient was available to work with. This happened in 1895, and surgeons spent the next 70 years trying to come up with a viable material for commercial breast implants.

Paraffin, alcohol-soaked sponges, and beeswax all failed to make the grade, but fortunately for breasts everywhere, Houston junior resident surgeon Frank Gerow came along in the early 1960s. Gerow conceived of the silicone implant after squeezing a blood bag and noting the similarity to a woman’s breast. His first experimental procedure was performed on a dog. It was successful, and before you ask, yes, the implants were removed once it was determined to be so.

Timmie Jean Lindsey, his pilot human patient, was asked to volunteer for the procedure after coming in to consult about having a tattoo removed. She was thrilled with the results. As a testament to the viability of the procedure, she still retains her implants—the first ones ever—to this day.

8 Modern Reconstructive Surgery Was Pioneered During World War I

While the aforementioned advances in anesthesia and antisepsis had plastic surgeons performing complex procedures on delicate areas by the early 1900s, the burgeoning specialty had never seen challenges such as those presented by World War I. Entire new categories of explosives and weapons were being deployed on the battlefield, and thousands of soldiers were returning home with the types of injuries that had literally never been seen before.

It was in leading the response to these challenges that the field underwent perhaps its greatest sustained period of advancement, largely thanks to the efforts of New Zealand–born, London-based surgeon Harold Gillies, widely considered the father of modern plastic surgery.

Recently uncovered records detail over 11,000 procedures performed on more than 3,000 soldiers in the eight years between 1917 and 1925, including groundbreaking skin and muscle grafting techniques that had never before been attempted. As antibiotics did not yet exist, infection was always a major concern.

Dr. Gillies mitigated this by inventing the tube pedicle or “walking-stalk skin flap” technique, which involves rolling the graft to be used into a tube and “walking” it up to the target site. This technique alone likely spared thousands from infections.

When the war ended, Gillies and other wartime plastic surgery pioneers were frustrated to find that their techniques and expertise were not exactly welcomed with open arms by the medical community at large. The field was not well-defined, and its practitioners had no means of sharing expertise or defining areas of specialty until the American Society of Plastic Surgeons was founded in 1931.

7 A Plastic Surgeon Helped Make Cars Safer

Debates over auto safety, which had been raging for some time prior, came to a head in 1935 with the publication of a Readers’ Digest article entitled “—And Sudden Death.” Author Joseph C. Furnas mainly took the tack of shaming careless drivers, attempting to shock them into better behavior by opining that for the reckless driver, the best hope was to be “thrown out as the doors spring open. At least you are spared the lethal array of gleaming metal knobs and edges and glass inside the car.”

While it did not seem to occur to Furnas that optimizing the safety of the actual vehicle would be helpful, Detroit plastic surgeon Claire Straith arrived at this commonsense conclusion after several years of specializing in the reconstruction of faces of car accident survivors.

After Straith sent a sternly worded letter to Walter P. Chrysler, five different Chrysler models were introduced in 1937 with features that were specifically designed with safety in mind, a first for any auto manufacturer. These features included rubber buttons instead of steel, rounded door handles, and recessed knobs.

Although it would take a while for Straith’s other recommendations—padded dashboards and safety belts—to be implemented, it didn’t stop the good doctor from installing both in his own vehicle years before they became standard.

6 A Plastic Surgeon Performed The First Organ Transplant

Although most people don’t think of transplant procedures as having much to do with plastic surgery, they involve many of the same small-scale techniques, such as reconstruction and reattaching of nerves and tissue and dealing with the potential for rejection. Indeed, the first successful organ transplant of any kind—in this case, a kidney—was performed by renowned plastic surgeon Joseph E. Murray in 1954.

Murray was already highly regarded for his work furthering the treatment of burn victims and those with facial disfigurements. However, this transplant procedure was incredibly groundbreaking in that, up until it was actually achieved, nobody even knew whether or not it was possible.

A decade of research and experimentation on the part of Dr. Murray had failed to yield positive results. With an assist from a donor organ given by the patient’s identical twin, the successful 1954 procedure ignited the medical community with possibilities simply by establishing organ transplants as viable.

Dr. Murray subsequently became an international authority on transplant and rejection biology, even helping to develop the first generation of immunosuppressants in the 1960s. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering work. He was one of only nine surgeons, and the only plastic surgeon, to ever receive the award.

5 A Plastic Surgeon Also Performed The First Successful Hand Transplant

Dr. Warren Breidenbach, chief of the Division of Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery at the University of Arizona in mid-2016, has had a long and storied career. His current focus includes the establishment of an institute for the study of composite tissue transplantation and leading-edge work on immunosuppressants. He is considered the world’s foremost authority on hand transplants and for good reason. In 1999, he became the first surgeon to perform the procedure successfully.

The recipient, Matthew Scott, had lost his hand in a fireworks accident an unbelievable 14 years prior to receiving the landmark surgery. Planning the procedure took three years. Breidenbach had to deal with the scrutiny of the entire medical community over ethics concerns as once again there were serious questions as to whether the procedure was even viable. Previous attempts—one in 1964 when immunosuppressant drugs were in their infancy and one just a year prior in 1998—had both resulted in the host’s immune system rejecting the donor hand.

Since this time, over 85 recipients have received hand or arm transplants worldwide, including children, amputees, and victims of explosives. Once again, the procedure could never have come to fruition without the advances already made by plastic surgeons and it took one of the very best to do it successfully. As of 2016, Breidenbach has performed more hand transplants than any other surgeon and has trained the majority of the rest who are qualified to perform the procedure in the US.

4 ‘Medical Tourism’ For Plastic Surgery Is Exploding

As our readers in the United States know and the rest of you may have heard, the US health care system leaves a little something to be desired. Although the quality of care and technology is generally good to great, waiting times for some procedures can be excruciating, and the cost for major surgeries tends to be . . . well, an arm and a leg.

As such, those in the market for expensive procedures—both cosmetic and medical—have been increasingly looking to countries where the cost of health care is more manageable. But we’re not talking about stereotypical back-alley Mexican nose jobs.

Although Mexico and Brazil are still getting their share of the so-called “medical tourism” market, newer major players like Dubai and Thailand are able to offer high-tech, quality care in a price range that is actually forcing the Western medical establishment to up its game in the face of their competition.

Thailand, for example, has become a world leader in medical tourism with cutting-edge equipment, internationally trained surgeons, and hospitals that look and feel more like luxury hotels than medical facilities. In 2013 alone, the country brought in a whopping $4.3 billion solely from foreigners seeking medical treatment.

3 The Newest Techniques Don’t Involve Surgery At All

Of course, for minor and less invasive procedures such as tucks and face-lifts, newer techniques are always being sought out to reduce healing time and potential scarring. New York plastic surgeon Doug Steinbrech offers a surgery-free face-lift, thanks to a special device that slowly stretches the skin over the course of three hours (under anesthesia, of course). Although stitches are required, healing is complete in five days, and the whole thing only costs $35,000, making it ideal for those who sleep on piles of money and really, really hate knives.

Fellow New Yorker Dr. Doris Day—who is, of course, a local media personality with a name like that—has also demonstrated nonsurgical techniques that use ultrasound to shrink problem areas, followed by Botox and laser treatments. Ultrasound can similarly be used in place of traditional liposuction.

Day calls it “the newest kid on the block for helping to resculpt and melt fat. [ . . . ] It’s like liposuction, but it’s a nonsurgical approach. [ . . . ] It uses that high-density focus ultrasound to actually heat up and melt fat.”

2 Men Are Pulling Even With Women

Most of us tend to think of surgery purely for cosmetic purposes as a largely female pursuit, and in years past, this may have been the case. But in recent times, the numbers show that a rapidly growing segment of this market—$14 billion annually as of 2014—is professional men.

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, between 1997 and 2014, there was a 273 percent increase in the number of men seeking cosmetic procedures, with a 43 percent increase just in the last five years of that period. A large part of the reason, says Dr. Steinbrech (him again), is that they view cosmetic surgery as a career investment. “Men are at the top of their career, and they feel young and confident,” said Steinbrech. “But they’re worried they don’t look it.”

Although the huge demand for cosmetic procedures may seem absurd to some, the same techniques involved in tucks and lifts must first be mastered before going on to accomplish the near-miracles that we’ll talk about next.

1 Full Face Transplants Are Increasingly Feasible

In 2012, Baltimore plastic surgeon Eduardo Rodriguez performed the most extensive full face transplant ever done on Richard Norris, who had attempted suicide in 1997 via shotgun to the face. Needless to say, it was perhaps the most intensive and complex plastic surgery procedure ever performed up to that time.

Only a few similar attempts had been made before then. The earliest—a partial face transplant—succeeded in 2006. Norris’s procedure also succeeded. Although his appearance is a bit odd and he must take drugs to keep his immune system at half-power for the rest of his life, the fact that his new face is functional given his injury is nothing short of astounding.

Rodriguez has since repeated his success. In 2015, he gave a new face to firefighter Patrick Hardison, whose original visage had been completely obliterated in a fire. The results are shockingly good, with Dr. Rodriguez commenting, “Tremendous advances in medicine have occurred, tremendous advances in innovation and technology that allow us to do this procedure reliably in today’s day and age.”

Although three deaths have occurred due to complications—a relatively small number given the acknowledged riskiness of the procedure—full or partial face transplants have been successfully performed on over 30 patients as of mid-2016.

In medical parlance, “never events” are medical errors that should never happen. However, as we are about to find out, they do happen more than doctors would probably like to admit.

As of 2011, 29 incidents are classified as never events. They include but are not limited to patients falling off hospital beds, doctors using the wrong procedures for treatment, doctors forgetting surgical equipment in the bodies of patients, and doctors performing surgeries on the wrong patients.

Here, we will focus on never events that happened during surgery.

10 17-Year-Old Gets Wrong Heart And Lungs During Transplant

In 2003, 17-year-old Jesica Santillan experienced what should be the worst never event incident that has ever happened. Three years earlier, she had been smuggled into the US by her parents, who wanted her to get medical treatment for her failing heart and lungs. Philanthropist Mack Mahoney read about her story in a newspaper and footed her medical bills for surgery at Duke University Hospital.

Santillan underwent the surgery on February 7, 2003. But it only worsened her situation because the doctors used organs from a donor with the wrong blood type. The donor had blood type A while Santillan had blood type O. They are incompatible.

Santillan’s body rejected the organs as she suffered a series of seizures and ended up on life support. Two weeks later, she underwent a second surgery. This time, the organs were of a compatible blood type. Although they worked well, it was too late. Santillan had suffered irreparable brain damage and was put on life support for some time. Eventually, she was taken off it.

At the time of her death, there were about 200 people in the US requiring donors for a heart-lung transplant. Santillan was supposed to be at the end of that list. But she was allowed to go to the front of the line because her situation was dire.

The medical error resulted in two sets of organs wasted. It also reduced the chances of survival for others awaiting surgery because it deprived them of the much-needed organs.^[1]

9 83-Year-Old Woman Undergoes Heart Surgery For A Respiratory Infection

Staff at Mediclinic Kimberley Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, committed a never event after they made an 83-year-old woman undergo a heart surgery intended for another patient. The woman was Rita du Plessis, and she was at the hospital to have a respiratory infection treated.

Du Plessis and another patient requiring heart surgery had the same physician. Their doctor told a surgeon to take the other patient into the operation theater, but the surgeon mixed up the names and took du Plessis instead. After she underwent the heart surgery, her family was even contacted and told that it had been a success.

Staffers only realized their error after the physician, who had been looking for du Plessis, informed them that they had operated on the wrong patient. The physician later called du Plessis’s family to explain the situation and apologize. The hospital did not charge her for the surgery.^[2]

8 Woman Loses Breast To Cancer She Didn’t Have

In April 2015, 49-year-old Eduvigis Rodriguez underwent surgery for an aggressive cancer lump in her left breast. The diseased breast was removed, and she was fine—at least until medics realized during post-surgery tests on the amputated breast that Rodriguez didn’t have cancer. The supposedly cancerous lump was caused by sclerosing adenosis, the benign growth of extra tissue in the breast.

The mistaken diagnosis of cancer was made at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital after a biopsy. But they referred Rodriguez for surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. However, this doesn’t mean that the staff at Lenox Hill was completely innocent.^[3]

Per hospital rules, Lenox Hill staff was supposed to run tests to confirm the initial diagnosis. But they didn’t do it even though Dr. Magdi Bebawi, who performed the surgery, signed paperwork claiming that they had. After the initial surgery, Rodriguez underwent reconstructive breast surgery. According to court records, she also suffered a surgical hernia and a pulmonary embolism as a result of the unnecessary mastectomy.

7 Wrong Patient Undergoes Brain Surgery

In 2018, Kenyatta National Hospital in Kenya made the news after a patient underwent a brain surgery intended for another patient. Both men were wheeled into the hospital unconscious and kept in the same ward. However, they somehow ended up with each other’s identification tag and the wrong one ended up in the operating theater.

The patient who required surgery had a blood clot in his brain, while the other simply had a swollen head. Surgeons wheeled the patient with the swollen head into the operating theater. But they didn’t realize that they had the wrong man until two hours later when they didn’t find a blood clot in the brain.^[4]

Hospital authorities suspended the neurosurgeon, anesthetist, and two nurses who were involved with the surgery. In a twist of fate, the patient who was supposed to have the surgery no longer needed it as his situation was already improving.

6 Elderly Woman Dies After Receiving Brain Surgery For A Jaw Displacement

The staff at Oakwood Hospital in Michigan found themselves in hot water after they made 81-year-old Bimla Nayyar undergo a brain surgery she didn’t need. The water got even hotter after Nayyar slipped into unconsciousness and died 60 days later.

Nayyar was admitted to Oakwood Hospital in January 2012 for a displaced jaw. The treatment was supposed to be an easy one until a CT scan revealed that she was bleeding in the brain. Although the scan actually belonged to another patient, the hospital staff thought it was Nayyar’s and quickly planned an emergency surgery.

In the operating theater, five holes were made in Nayyar’s head before the right side of her skull was sawed open. Doctors only realized their error after they couldn’t find any evidence of bleeding in her brain. They informed her family of the error but didn’t inform them of its severity.^[5]

Nayyar never regained consciousness after the surgery and remained on life support for 60 days until the ventilator was switched off on March 11, 2012. Her family filed a lawsuit and was awarded $21 million.

5 Doctor Amputates Wrong Leg During Surgery And Another Patient’s Toe Without Permission

In February 1995, Dr. Rolando R. Sanchez found himself in trouble after he amputated the healthy leg of 52-year-old Willie King instead of the other diseased leg. Sanchez was already cutting the wrong leg when a nurse looked through the patient’s file and started crying. It was then that Sanchez was informed that he had been working on the wrong leg.

Sanchez denied responsibility for the error and shifted it to other staff members involved in the surgery. The blackboard in the operating room listed the wrong leg for amputation. So did the operating room schedule and the hospital computer.^[6]

The wrong leg had also been prepared for surgery prior to the doctor’s arrival. Sanchez added that he didn’t realize that he was cutting the wrong leg because it was also diseased and might have needed to be removed in the future.

Sanchez’s license was suspended in July 1995 after he botched a second surgery. This time, he amputated the toe of Mildred Shuler without her consent. Shuler was undergoing surgery to remove diseased tissue in her right foot when, according to the doctor, a diseased bone “popped.” He decided to remove it to prevent an infection.

4 Healthy Patient Loses A Healthy Kidney During Surgery He Didn’t Need

An unnamed patient at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, was left with one kidney after doctors mistook him for someone else. The real patient, whose CT scan revealed the presence of a tumor on his kidney, was supposed to undergo surgery to remove it.

However, the patient with the healthy kidney was somehow wheeled into surgery instead. The error was discovered after post-surgery tests revealed that the excised kidney was healthy.^[7]

The hospital staff was blamed for the incident as they did not follow proper identification protocols. While both patients had the same name, which was the cause of the confusion, they had different ages. If the staff had paid more attention, they would have realized that they had the wrong man.

3 Healthy One-Day-Old Boy Mistakenly Gets A Frenulectomy

The University Medical Center in Lebanon, Tennessee, got its fair share of medical never events after a one-day-old baby named Nate underwent a tongue-clipping surgery (frenulectomy) he didn’t need. This surgery removes the tissue connecting the tongue to the floor of the mouth.

A surgeon had specifically sent for baby Nate, and a nurse had gone to take him from his mother, Jennifer Melton. Jennifer didn’t ask questions because she assumed that Nate was being taken for a regular postnatal checkup. She only realized that Nate had undergone surgery when the nurse started educating her about the benefits of the procedure.^[8]

Jennifer checked whether the baby given to her was really Nate because she knew that he was healthy and didn’t require surgery. The nurse later confirmed the details and realized that the pediatrician had operated on the wrong baby. The doctor apologized for the mix-up, but Jennifer called her lawyers.

2 Doctor Removes Woman’s Reproductive Organs Instead Of Appendix

In March 2015, an unnamed woman living in the UK went to a hospital managed by the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust and complained of abdominal pain. Tests revealed that she had appendicitis, and she was scheduled for surgery to have her appendix removed.

However, the surgeon removed an ovary and fallopian tube instead. The surgeon responsible for the error passed it off as a minor mistake and blamed it on poor vision. He added that the wormlike look of the appendix and fallopian tube confused him.

UK medical authorities didn’t agree. This was the third botched surgery for this doctor within two years. In September 2013, he had removed some fat from a patient who also needed an appendectomy. The patient was in extreme pain until he underwent another surgery a month later.

In another patient, the doctor removed a skin tag instead of a cyst. The doctor apologized for the mistakes, but he was banned from treating more patients.^[9]

1 Doctor Removes Wrong Testicle During Surgery

In 2013, Steven Hanes was scheduled for surgery at J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania to remove a painful and damaged right testicle. He underwent the surgery, but the doctor mistakenly excised the left testicle instead.^[10]

Dr. Valley Spencer Long claimed that he mistook Hanes’s right testicle for the left one because the two testicles had somehow switched positions. Hanes took legal action against the surgeon and the hospital and was awarded $870,000.

Going into surgery can be scary enough; depending on the procedure, there can be many steps and preventative measures that need to be taken to ensure that the patient will recover completely. Trusting in the staff, from the nurses to the doctors to the surgeons themselves, is a leap of faith.

TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and ER have prepared the viewer to expect the worst: blood flying, body parts being cut off, organs not getting there in time. The reality is less dramatic—well, almost. With an estimated 28 million surgeries preformed yearly, mistakes can be made.^[1] However, the mistakes made in the following surgeries are those stemming from the creation of one’s worst nightmares. Ranging from towels to needles to even whole instruments, patients found out after they left the operating room that they were left with mementos from their procedures they hadn’t expected, or wanted.

Though surgeries may not be a dramatic as they are on TV, finding out that something is in your body that shouldn’t be isn’t what you want to hear after you’ve already been sewn back up.

10 The Gloves Are Off

Having surgery to stop her heavy menstruation was supposed to be the end of one French woman’s problems. The procedure, which she underwent in April 2017, was new, something that would be aid in stopping periods without being a full-blown hysterectomy.^[2] The promise was that once her surgery was completed, she wouldn’t be experiencing any more bleeding or pain.

However, the woman, who was told her operation went well and that there were no complications, did not feel anything near relief. After her surgery, she began feeling pain in her lower adbomen—the exact reason she had gone in to begin with. This pain led to a loss of sleep and her constantly feeling ill. Unable to handle it any longer, she called her doctor, who attributed it to her weight and gave her painkillers.

The painkillers did nothing to stop her pain, however, and after three days, she began to feel sharp stabs of pain due to contractions. Her contractions resulted in her pushing out a glove and five compresses that had been left inside her during her procedure, as well as a large pool of blood that led to her being sent to the hospital.

A similar case happened to a woman in England in 2013, when a routine hysterectomy left the woman in severe pain. The pain continued three days after Sharon Birks’s surgery, and she was provided antibiotics by her doctors, as they believed her procedure had likely resulted in an infection.

However, the pain didn’t stop. Though Mrs. Burks began to believe it was her catheter, a trip to the bathroom proved otherwise. While in the bathroom, the pain was accompanied by pressure, and a surgical glove came out of her. While no damage occurred, the experience itself was apparently horrifying enough.

Talk about unexpected births.

9 Needle In A Haystack

The old adage “finding a needle in a haystack” relates to trying to find something that cannot easily be found. In this case, the adage applies to a Tennessee man who died after surgeons left a needle inside him in May 2017.^[3]

John Burns Johnson had just come out of a nine-hour heart surgery when his surgeon realized that he was missing a needle. Confirming through X-ray that the needle was, in fact, still inside Mr. Johnson, a second operation was conducted. It’s uncertain if the needle couldn’t be found or removed, but nevertheless it remained inside Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson unfortunately passed away a month later due to the complications caused by the needle’s presence in his body. The needle was found and removed during his autopsy.

As shocking as this is, it isn’t the only time this has happened. A woman found out there was an epidural needle left in her back, 14 years after her caesarean surgery back in 2003. The Florida woman had experienced back pain for years but did not realize it was a serious issue until an X-ray showed the epidural needle had broken into three places along her spine. The needle being left behind resulted in nerve damage along her spine and severe scarring.

In case you’re rethinking surgeries, never fret; only ten percent of the items found inside patients end up being needles.

8 Throw In The Towel

A California man went into his doctor’s expecting the worst-case scenario when it came to his diagnosis. Months after an April 2014 abdominal surgery for bladder cancer, he started to experience pain in his bowels, along with a sense of fatigue and an inability to even drive himself to his appointments. Though he had expected a diagnosis that the previously treated cancer had spread, it turned out that the mass which had been causing all his pain was not cancer but, shockingly enough, a towel.

Despite all the surgical instruments being accounted for, the surgical team forgot to keep track of the towels used during surgery. This lead to a misplaced towel ending up in this man’s abdomen, where it caused him a myriad of health problems, not to mention the fear that his cancer was spreading.

Towels being left in patients is not unheard-of; they account for 2.1 percent of items left inside patients during surgery and are undetectable by X-rays. In 1995, an Ohio woman went in for lung surgery and left feeling off. The feeling that something was sitting in her chest stayed until she passed away seven years later. It wasn’t until the autopsy that they found the cause of her pain: a green towel which had been balled up and left in her lung.^[4]

Unfortunately, it was too late to correct the problem, but it did explain the woman’s odd feeling of something moving in her chest despite it nothing being found on X-rays. In the case of the California man, he made a full recovery, and the doctor who performed the surgery was fired. The man sued the hospital to help soak up the damages.

7 No Sponge About It

Bleeding is an unfortunate side effect of surgery, and using sponges is common practice to ensure that the blood doesn’t spread. Leaving the sponge inside the patient, however, is not.

A woman in Japan experienced strange abdominal bloating for three years off and on, with no explanation. After she went to the doctor in hopes of finding the culprit, test results revealed that she not one but two sponges inside her abdomen. The sponges were believed have been left in there during her caesarean six years prior and had attached themselves to the folds connecting her stomach and abdomen as well as her colon.

While surgery provided her much-needed relief, sponges being left inside patients is quite common. Roughly 70 percent of the items found in patients are sponges, and they can do lethal damage. Almost two-thirds of cases where items such as sponges were left inside patients have led to serious infection, injury, and even death.

In 2007, another woman who had a sponge left inside her after a dual bladder and hysterectomy surgery left her feeling ill. Doctors claimed it was a gastrointestinal issue and sent her home, but when the pain began to be accompanied by bleeding, her gynecologist believed it was an ovarian cyst. After her ovaries were removed, the pain continued, and subsequent tests showed that a mass had gathered in her intestines. This mass had been blocked previously by her ovaries, but its identity was obvious now: A sponge had been left behind and had embedded itself into her body. After yet another surgery, and having a large portion of her intestines removed, the sponge was taken out.^[5]

6 Wire Not?

Wires are a common instrument used in surgeries, and depending on the procedure, some have to be kept in the body. However, in the case of a patient in England, a wire was left behind after a routine surgery in August 2018. The wire wasn’t noted as missing until 12 hours later. Luckily, that was still soon enough that the patient suffered no side effects, and a follow-up surgery was scheduled to remove it.

A similar heart-wrenching case happened to Donald Gable in Philadelphia. After his heart surgery, Gable returned home feeling fine. It wasn’t until a follow-up with his doctors that he found out that a 0.6-meter (2 ft) wire had been sitting in his chest for six weeks. Thankfully, the wire was able to be removed, though Mr. Gable was lucky it didn’t pierce a vein, given its precarious positioning.

Wires are often used to aid doctors in guiding instruments to where they need to be. At the Albany Medical Center, two wires were left behind in patients during surgeries. One wire had been used for guiding during a catheter procedure. It wasn’t until the patient had an X-ray done that doctors were able to locate and remove it.

The other incident occurred during a caesarean, during which the wire from a probe was accidentally cut. While the staff were aware the piece of the wire was missing, they didn’t believe it was inside the woman and closed her stitches. Yet again, it wasn’t until she went in for X-rays later that the wire was discovered.^[6]

Though no major damage occurred from these accidents, surgical staff were mostly certainty cutting it too close to the wire.

5 Rock, Paper . . . Scissors?

During childhood, it’s almost too common for parents to have to remind their children to be careful with scissors. For a woman in Australia, the same warning should have been given to her surgeon.

After going in for surgery in 2001 to remove part of her colon, 69-year-old Pat Skinner experienced pain but had been instructed that because of the nature of her surgery, this was to be expected. The pain didn’t stop, and although doctors claimed it was because of the surgery, Mrs. Skinner didn’t think so. This pain wasn’t similar to the uncomfortable feeling doctors warned her about; it was much, much worse. Turns out, Mrs. Skinner was correct.

An X-ray performed by her general practitioner showed that 18-centimeter (7 in) scissors had been left inside her during her surgery. The scissors had become wedged against her tailbone, causing much of her excruciating pain. Unfortunately, by the time the scissors were noticed, tissue had begun to grow over them, and a more extensive surgery had to be done to remove them, resulting in doctors having to remove part of her bowels as well.

Shockingly, this isn’t the only time this has happened. In 2016, a man who had received surgery after an accident 18 years prior began experiencing abdominal pain that didn’t seem to abate despite receiving meds. An X-ray revealed that scissors from the prior operation (pictured above) were still inside the man, identified as “M.V.N.” The scissors, which had rusted due to being left inside his body for so long, had to be removed in a three-hour-long surgery due to the rusted handles being embedded in some of his organs.^[7] Despite the scissors being in M.V.N. for 18 years, he made a full recovery and was sent home within days.

It seems the doctors weren’t playing with scissors; they were playing with their patient’s lives.

4 To Scalpel Or Not To Scalpel?

A surgeon can only be as good as their hands and their tools, which is why it’s surprising when a surgeon loses said tools . . . inside their patient.

This shock came to an Army veteran who underwent surgery in 2013 to remove his prostate after a cancer diagnosis. The surgery went on longer than expected, but Mr. Glenford Turner was not told of any complications or given any indication that there was anything amiss. The pain, however, did not fade, despite the doctor’s reassurances that it would. After four years, Mr. Turner went back in to see his doctor due to unrelenting abdominal pain.

What they found was not a tumor but a foreign object. The scalpel (pictured above) was confirmed to be from his prior surgery and had been left inside him, moving between his bladder and rectal area, causing much of his pain.

Thankfully, the scalpel was able to be removed. This is unlike the case of Victor Hutchison, who was admitted to the hospital after experiencing what he thought were gallbladder issues. Once he was brought in for an X-ray, it was obvious that his gallbladder was not the problem. Months earlier, Mr. Hutchinson had undergone heart bypass surgery in which the scalpel used in the procedure had gone missing. While staff were aware of the missing scalpel, they couldn’t find it and had checked Mr. Hutchinson’s chest using an X-ray, only to come up empty-handed.

Unknown to the surgical staff, the scalpel had left the chest cavity and had lodged itself in Mr. Hutchinson’s abdominal cavity around his spine. Once the scalpel had been found during his subsequent X-ray, the doctors ruled that it was in too precarious of a position to be removed.^[8] Of all the mementos to keep, it’s doubtful Mr. Hutchinson wanted to keep this one from his surgery.

3 You’ve Got This, Clamp

Clamps are very useful during surgery, due to their ability to keep things in place when everything else seems to be moving. They’re so helpful, in fact, that they’re sometimes forgotten about. That is, until the patient is rudely reminded.

Sometimes, even the most routine procedures can lead to harrowing results. After going in for a routine surgery to remove their gastric band in 2011 caused one unnamed patient to end having much more removed. While it seemed that the surgery went well, surgical staff had not realized that a 20-centimeter (8 in) clamp had been left inside the patient. The clamp was detected three days later, and another operation was scheduled to remove it. During this surgery, the patient began to unexpectedly bleed profusely and ultimately had to have their spleen removed.^[9]

2 Retract This!

Retained foreign bodies do occasionally happen, and while objects such as sponges, gauze, and needles are more likely, whole objects such as scissors, wires, and even entire retractors are not unheard-of.

A man in Seattle can testify to this after he continued to have pain following his surgery in 2000. His doctor reassured him that the pain was normal and could last a month after the procedure. However, after setting off metal detectors in an airport, Mr. Donald Church went to his physician to get a second opinion. A CAT scan showed that an entire 33-centimeter-long (13 in) retractor had been left inside him during his surgery to remove a cancerous tumor a month prior. The retractor had been putting pressure on his abdomen and chest, making him feel as if he was slowing dying.

This incident occurred at the University of Washington Medical Center, which admitted in the subsequent lawsuit against them that this is not the first time such a thing had happened. In fact, almost a year prior, a woman had a retractor left inside her during her surgery to remove her cancer. The retractor had remained inside her for almost a month before doctors realized what was causing the pain.

While these incidents were quickly handled, one unnamed patient wasn’t so lucky. His pain lasted off and on for 27 years after his surgery in 1979 to remove polyps in his abdomen. After the operation, the patient felt pain in his side, though doctors attributed it to an abdominal hematoma. However, two decades and some change later, during an X-ray, doctors noticed a large metal mass on the side of his pelvis. The culprit was a 28-centimeter (11 in) surgical retractor which had been overlooked after his first surgical X-rays, 27 years prior.^[10]

Despite the name, it seems that doctors easily forget to retract the objects they use in surgery.

1 Everything But The Kitchen Sink

While many of these cases seem troubling, nothing is as disturbing as a man going in for cancer surgery and leaving with 16 additional problems. Those problems? Surgical items which had been left inside him during the procedure.

Dirk Schroeder’s 2009 surgery was supposed to be an easy procedure, one with minor side effects. What Mr. Schroeder experienced post-surgery was the complete opposite. After his operation, Mr. Schroeder experienced pain, fatigue, discomfort, and illness. Still, his doctors believed it was all expected as part of his recovery. That was until his home health care nurse noticed a gauze pad in a place it shouldn’t be: coming out of Mr. Schroder’s stitches.^[11] Scans found that there were 16 items left in his body during his surgery, including: swabs, a 15-centimeter (6 in) roll of bandage, a compress, needles, and other surgical tools, including part of a surgical mask, which had been impairing his body’s ability to heal correctly.

A total of 1,500 patients a year experience items being left inside them during surgery. They range from gauze to large tools, but rarely are multiple different items left in a patient. For Mr. Schroeder, it cost him two more surgeries to get the 16 objects, either whole or in fragments, out of his body.

How the staff didn’t notice a large number of their tools missing after the surgery is the question both Mr. Schroeder’s family and everyone would like answered.

We really don’t realize how lucky we are until we take a look back at the medical history books and recognize that most surgical practices during the Victorian era (1837–1901) were basically medieval. Between the 1840s and the mid-1890s, there were some radical changes in the operating room which went on to become a surgical revolution. However, many patients had to suffer up until that point.

The high mortality rate during this time is widely reported in newspapers, medical journals, and coroners’ inquests; even the healthiest of people wouldn’t make it out of surgery alive. It really was a tough time being a Victorian who needed surgery, but thanks to advances in modern science, these real-life horror stories are all a thing of the past. These following gruesome and shocking facts are not for the fainthearted.

10 Chloroform Was Considered A Practical Anesthetic

The idea of surgery without anesthesia is unimaginable, but that was a grim reality in the past. In 1847, chloroform was introduced in Britain and used for the next 50 years. Scottish obstetrician Sir James Simpson was the first to try chloroform, and after passing out in his dining room, he realized that he could utilize its powerful fumes for practical purposes.^[1]

Simpson invented a mask that would be saturated in chloroform and then placed over the patient’s face. After only a few minutes of preparation, surgery would begin. Even Queen Victoria herself was given chloroform for the birth of her last two children. Use of chloroform as an anesthetic eventually declined.

9 Hot Irons Were Used To Stop Bleeding

In Victorian surgery, where there was profuse bleeding from a wound, a hot iron might be used to stop the blood flow. Obviously, this was not pleasant at all, and alternatives to cauterization had been found long before the Victorian era. The scientific journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society reported on one such alternative way back in the 1670s. Surprisingly, they even recorded the surgery as a “cheerful” experience for the patient.

The report reads:

The leg therefore of the poor woman being cut off, immediately the Arteries were dressed with some linen pedlgets dipt in the [mysterious] Astringent liquor with a compress on it, and a bandage keeping all close against the arteries. The success was, that the blood was staunch without any other dressing; and instead of complaining, as those are wont to do who have a limb cut off, and the mouths of whose arteries are burnt with a hot Iron or a caustique to stop the blood, this Patient look’d very cheerful, and was free from pain, and slept two hours after, and also the night following; and from that time hath found herself still better and better without any return of bleeding, or any ill accident.^[2]

8 Many Of The Surgeries Resulted In Fatalities

Surgery in the Victorian era was lethal, but not due to the fast-handed surgeons. Instead, it was the high probability of infection after the patient left the operating table. According to medical historian Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, “[Surgeons] never washed their instruments or their hands. The operating tables themselves were rarely washed down. These places became a sort of slow-moving execution for the patient because they would develop these postoperative infections that would kill them, sometimes within days, sometimes within months.”^[3]

Despite the pungent smell, doctors also believed that pus emitting from a post-surgery wound was a sign that things were healing well rather than what it really was—the result of a bacterial infection. The high death rate was just put down to “ward fever.” It wasn’t until surgeon Joseph Lister (1827–1912) introduced antiseptic practice and sterile environments in hospitals that the infection rate began to lower. Lister is now known as the “father of antiseptic surgery.”

7 Barbers Were Recruited As Surgeons During War

From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, there was a brief period of calm in Britain. During the battle days, however, barbers did a lot more than cut hair—they were enlisted as surgeons and expected to perform operations on wounded soldiers. Despite no extensive knowledge or formal training that extended further than that of an apprentice, a barber-surgeon would be tasked with pulling teeth, bloodletting, and performing basic surgical tasks.

Surgeons and barbers were separated as two professions well before the Victorian era,^[4] but patients in need of surgery would still sometimes approach barbers, as they had the sharp tools required for the job. Even in modern times, the red and white poles outside of a barber’s shop are a symbol of the blood-soaked napkins they used during bloodletting.

6 Leeches Would Be Used To Extract Blood

If the thought of blood-sucking leeches is enough to make your skin crawl, then this part might make you shudder. The heart pumps 5 liters (1.3 gal) of blood around the body in just one minute, and severe blood loss can lead to shock or even death. Luckily, our body has a clotting system in place to prevent this. However, during the Victorian era, the ancient practice of bloodletting hadn’t quite died out just yet.

Victorian surgeons would use live leeches to suck the blood from the patient. The practice of bloodletting was harmful, as it could cause anemia, but doctors overlooked this for thousands of years.^[5]

5 Amputated Limbs Would Be Dropped In Sawdust

Imagine having your leg sawed off because of a broken bone or a fracture; then that limb is dropped in a bucket of sawdust by your side as you lie on the operating table, and people observing start to applaud. As mentioned previously, this could all occur without anesthetics, so it’s no surprise that patients would hope for an efficient and quick surgeon.

Dr. Robert Liston (1794–1847) was one of the most famous surgeons in history and was known as the “fastest knife in the West End.” He amputated his patients’ limbs with great speed and often called out during the surgeries, “Time me, Gentlemen! Time me!” On average, only one of every ten of Liston’s patients died at London’s University College Hospital, which was considered a great success, as other surgeons lost one in every four on average. Patients would camp outside his waiting room in hopes that he would consider them for surgery.^[6]

4 Hospitals Were Only For The Poor

If you were lucky enough to be rich during the Victorian era, a family doctor would treat you at home from the comfort of your own bed. The poor would be hospitalized, and it was it was the role of the government, not the medical staff, to decide who would be admitted. Only one day a week was put aside for accepting new patients, and they would typically fall into two categories: either “incurables” for infectious diseases or “lunatics” who suffered from mental illnesses. Starting in 1752, the rule at St Thomas’ Hospital in London was that “no patient was to be admitted more than once with the same disease.”^[7]

Operating rooms would always be situated on the top floor of hospitals to take advantage of the sunlight that would beam through a window in the roof. If patients were too poor to pay for their treatment, spectators were invited to view the procedures. For others, they would have to seek financial support from their parish or a willing patron.

3 Surgeons Wore Their Blood-Soaked Clothes With Pride

British surgeon Sir Berkeley Moynihan (1865–1936), recalled how his fellow surgeons would turn up to work, enter the operating theater, and put on old surgical frocks that were “stiff with dried blood and pus.”^[8] Victorian surgeons were known for wearing their blood-soaked garments with pride, and they also carried with them the stench of rotting flesh as they made their way home.

Being a surgeon was not considered the noble profession it is today, and the hospital bug-catcher, who had the job of ridding the mattresses of lice, was paid more than a surgeon during this time. Due to high mortality rates, hospitals were known more as “houses of death” than houses of healing.

2 There Were Crowds Gathered Around The Operating Table

While patients would squirm on the operating tables and even attempt to run away during the painful procedures, onlookers would be there to enjoy the whole show. Operating in front of an audience was nothing unusual during the Victorian era, and the risk of germs entering the theater wasn’t even thought about.

Historian Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, writes, “The first two rows were occupied by the other dressers, and behind a second partition stood the pupils, packed like herrings in a barrel, but not so quiet, as those behind them were continually pressing on those before and were continually struggling to relieve themselves of it, and had not infrequently to be got out exhausted. There was also a continual calling out of “Heads, Heads” to those about the table whose heads interfered with the sightseers.”^[9]

The painful cries of the patients and the loud crowd watching the surgery could be overheard from the street many floors below.

1 One Of The Most Renowned Surgeons Was Transgender

In 1865, surgeon Dr. James Barry died. His gravestone reads: “Dr James Barry, Inspector General of Hospitals.” Considered one of the most successful surgeons in Victorian history, Barry was actually born Margaret Ann Bulkley and had no way of fulfilling his dreams in the operating theater, as women were denied a formal education. He enlisted in the army, and in 1826, he carried out a successful caesarean section in Cape Town, seven years before the operation was performed for the first time in Britain.

Known for his bad temper, he angered Florence Nightingale, and following his death, she said, “After he was dead, I was told that [Barry] was a woman. I should say that [Barry] was the most hardened creature I ever met.”^[10] It wasn’t until a domestic member of staff cleaned his body after his death that the truth was realized. His gravestone was already listed and remains unchanged.

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime and oddities fanatic. Founder of Crime Viral and can be found on Twitter @TheCheish.

When you go through minor surgery, there’s nothing major about it. Well, there is—surgery is surgery. But it should be routine, with minimal cuts, maybe a few stitches, and little to no organ rearranging. Most important, you should be able to walk out that outpatient door and recover at home. But sometimes, the best-laid surgery plans don’t go as expected. 

Whether it’s from medical malpractice, freak allergic reactions, or underlying conditions occasionally, people die during the most routine and minor procedures. Death is always a risk with surgery. Still, when it happens in these cases, it’s especially surprising. Here are the top 10 times people died during minor surgery.

10 Lidocaine Toxicity

The chance of dying from a local anesthetic is extremely rare, with less than a 1 in 100,000 chance. The local anesthetic in this story is lidocaine. Medical professionals use lidocaine for a variety of procedures, from trigger point injections to dental reconstructions. It is generally safe, but for a select unlucky few, it can be deadly. Chances of death increase if the doctor administering the local anesthetic makes a mistake.

This was the case for a five-year-old girl in 2011. Kensley Kirby’s parents took her to Family Medical Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia, after falling and suffering a broken arm. The doctor administered a lidocaine numbing shot while setting her arm, but she did not react well to it. The dosage was fatal. With a broken bone, her body absorbed the nerve blocker quickly. Investigators speculated that the doctor who administered the shot was used to working on adults, not young children. That’s still no excuse for someone who knows better than not to adjust the dosage for a little girl.

9 Therapeutic Complications

On September 4, 2014, comedian and fashion critic Joan Rivers died from therapeutic complications of a routine endoscopy. Therapeutic complications are predictable outcomes of therapy or procedure. 

While under anesthesia, her vocal cords went into spasm, which blocked oxygen from her brain. Because her throat swelled, doctors couldn’t insert a breathing tube in time, resulting in brain damage and respiratory failure. Her heart went into arrhythmia—irregular heartbeat—and eventually stopped beating. Although it’s a terribly tragic way to go, heart and respiratory failure—and ultimately brain damage—are rare side effects of anesthesia. 

The flip side to Joan’s death is that it may not have been entirely the fault of her spasming vocal cords. The doctors conducting the procedure were investigated for malpractice. Besides taking a selfie with Joan (while she was under anesthesia), they had also performed a laryngoscopy, something Joan had not agreed to. The timeline of events also shows that doctors could have avoided Joan’s death had they realized her blood pressure and pulse were dropping earlier on.

8 Andy’s Gallbladder

Pop art pioneer and cultural icon Andy Warhol led a fantastical Manhattan lifestyle, even making a few enemies along the way. In 1968, radical author and artist Valerie Solanas marched to Warhol’s office and shot him twice. The bullets wrecked his organs, including his lungs, and it wasn’t clear whether or not he would survive. He even died at the hospital while they were working on repairs. But survive he did! You would think surviving a gunshot wound like that would get you the pass in any other life-threatening situations—but that wasn’t the case.

What used to be labeled a “routine” gallbladder surgery by the media is what ultimately killed Warhol. It was not routine, at least, not in Warhol’s case. The stress of the recovery, his sustained injuries from the gunshot wounds, a healthy dose of speed every day, and a prolonged sickness were just way too much for his heart. Though he made it through the surgery, he didn’t make it out of the hospital.

7 Danger at the Dentist’s Office

Nitrous oxide is a safe alternative to pain and anti-anxiety medication during outpatient surgeries. However, if used incorrectly, it could prove to be fatal. In another case of a medical professional not knowing when enough is enough, a young child died due to lack of oxygen during a dental procedure. The boy reportedly had behavioral issues and the surgery to remove four decaying teeth would be painful. When he wasn’t responding to the nitrous oxide, the doctor increased the amount of sedative he used. 

6 Lack of Wisdom

That isn’t the only incident of a young person suffering the worst complications anesthesia can cause. A 17-year-old girl suffered a heart attack during a routine wisdom teeth extraction surgery. Though the doctor eventually revived her and got her to a hospital, she was declared brain dead a week after the surgery. The family sued for malpractice, arguing that there should have been better monitoring and emergency response. There was also evidence that an uncertified dental assistant was partially to blame for the oversight. The family received a $2 million settlement, but no money is enough to make up for the loss of their daughter.

5 Mommy Makeover

A 38-year-old mother of two was on vacation with her family in Tijuana. While there, she decided to travel to Mexico with two other friends and treat herself to a “mommy makeover.” The tummy tuck ended up a fatal decision. Sadly, she experienced blood clotting during the procedure and suffered a heart attack. Even after 45 minutes of CPR, the medical team could not revive her. The two other women developed terrible complications. 

Most plastic surgery these days is considered outpatient, or ambulatory, surgery. Meaning a patient can arrive in the morning and be recovered enough to leave (with assistance, of course) the same day. Still, it is expensive. The cost of these procedures has increased medical tourism. In medical tourism, people seek out “certified” plastic surgeons in other countries. These surgeons usually charge a fraction of the price they would pay in the US and promise the same results. The issue is that you risk quality, hygiene, and your life with potentially deceptive ads and medical malpractice.

It seems it’s best to invest in a certified doctor or not get plastic surgery at all.

4 Bleach in the Line

Not all deaths during medical procedures are accidental. Back in 2012, a Texas nurse, Kimberly Clark Saenz, was arrested and sentenced to the death penalty for murdering dialysis patients during their treatments. People who suffer from chronic kidney disease rely on dialysis to filter and clean their blood, as their kidneys cannot. That said, dialysis patients put a lot of trust into the facility they go to for treatment and one misstep by dialysis technicians could mean some serious health consequences. 

Saenz did not care.

In 2008, about a year after Saenz started working at the dialysis center, administrators noticed that more and more patients were falling ill and suffering from cardiac arrest during treatments. In an effort to reduce these numbers, the facility made some staff changes and rearranged nurses. Saenz was reassigned as a patient care technician. Later that day, two patients saw her inject a bleach solution into the IV lines and reported her. She was ultimately fired and an investigation was opened to look into her contact with patients.

Of the five patients who had died that year, all had come into direct contact with Saenz. She was in-saenz.

3 da Vinci Robot

The medical profession has advanced by leaps and bounds in its practices and surgical equipment. What was once considered major, “open you up” surgery, doctors can now do through smaller incisions. They can perform cardiac oblations by threading tools up the femoral artery; they can remove your gallbladder with two small incisions. In gynecology, new technology even helps surgeons perform hysterectomies (the removal of the uterus) similarly. Oh, and you can get a robot to help you out, too. 

The da Vinci is that robot! The positives: it’s a minimally invasive surgical tool and patients may end up experiencing fewer complications from their surgery. The negatives: it’s still fairly new technology, and doctors only receive one day’s worth of formal training with it. Unfortunately, one little slip of the robot and technological celebration could turn into a technological tragedy.

In 2012, the da Vinci made a major slip up. As a result, a woman died during her robot-assisted hysterectomy. The robot’s arm nicked a blood vessel. This isn’t the only incident involving one of these machines, but it is certainly the most tragic.

2 Fat Cells

This plastic surgery death differs from the others on this list because the patient didn’t look for a cheap alternative. Traveling to Miami, Florida, from New York, the 46-year-old transgender woman found a clinic specializing in Brazillian butt lifts. She was scheduled to have a completely routine Brazilian butt-lift surgery. Nothing more. 

The catch is that as routine as the surgery is, they pose a greater risk than other plastic surgeries. When a surgeon injects fat below the gluteal muscles—your butt muscles—the needle can accidentally penetrate the gluteal vein. This caused the fat to enter the bloodstream, leading to major complications and heart and lung failure. Over the past decade, at least 20 people in Miami alone have died from the surgery. 

Unfortunately, in this case, that’s what happened to the beloved New Yorker. Her oxygen and heart rate dropped while on the table, the doctor couldn’t resuscitate her, and she was declared dead at the hospital. Her death was ruled accidental.

1 A Repeat Offender

People may not see labor as surgery because it is so routine, procedural, and oftentimes rewarding. But there are certainly obvious surgical aspects to the process, especially when it comes to C-sections, which is a surgery. 

Every labor is slightly different, of course, but there is protocol for almost every situation. Yet this guy, this guy right here—Dr. (or soon-to-be-former Dr.) Dmitry Shelchkov—decided not to follow protocol. Imagine being the reason why a child grows up without their mother. That’s Shelchkov.

Back in 2020, Shelchkov was directly responsible for the death of a 26-year-old mother from Brooklyn Sha-Asia Washington. During her C-section, he failed to give her oxygen after experiencing breathing difficulties. After he had given her an epidural, he administered additional medication. Want to guess what it was? Fentanyl. It was fentanyl. This was when Shelchkov didn’t give her enough oxygen. 

She became unresponsive, without a pulse, two minutes later. She continued to suffer a string of cardiac arrests until she passed away later that night.

Shelchkov has been tied to eight other malpractice incidents, including not giving anesthesia to another C-section patient. His medical license is currently suspended.
 

Plastic surgery has existed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Of course, 16th century plastic surgery was by no means as refined as it is today, but it did set a precedent and start a trend of trying to fix, at first, disfigurements and then, in time, just things people felt were aesthetically displeasing about themselves. These days you can go to a doctor and get them to change literally any part of your body if you can afford it, whether there’s a problem with it or not. And some of the procedures being done are stranger than you’d think. 

10. Elf Ear Surgery

Ears have been a staple of fantasy and sci-fi for many years now. Specifically, ears that look a little weird. If you want to give a quick sign that someone is not quite human, you give them weird ears. Just look at Vulcans and elves, both of whom are known for having pointy ears and are generally human-looking otherwise, at least in most popular stories about them. 

The pointy ear trope is so prevalent in fiction that a certain subsection of fans have opted to make a permanent alteration to their bodies to keep the look. Rather than cosplaying as elves or other whimsical creatures, they’re getting surgery to have elf ears.

The trend has really taken off in China, where the concept of elf ears is not necessarily pointy ears but noticeable ones. The surgery makes the ears more prominent. Injections of hyaluronic acid can be used, and potentially surgical alteration by implanting cartilage behind them can make a person’s ears stand out away from their head. It’s believed this offers a more slimming appearance to the face overall.

Of course, literal elf ear surgery is also a thing where surgeons can cut into the cartilage at the top of the ear and reshape it into a point, though it’s not without complications and the potential for serious infection or malformation. 

9. Selfies May be Driving an Uptick in Nose Job Surgeries

There’s no denying we’re living in a bit of a self-obsessed age. The idea of a selfie in a time before camera phones was pretty unheard of. Most people didn’t want to waste film turning a camera on themselves. But your phone can take a million pictures and you can delete all the ones you don’t like, so it’s pretty easy to chronicle what you look like all day long every day if you want. But that does come at a price.

The way you take a picture can alter your perception of your appearance. If you hold your phone at a distance of 12 inches from your face or closer, it’s going to make your nose look 30% larger compared to all your other facial features. That works out to your nose looking 6.4% longer than it really is. The base of the nose looks wider and your chin looks shorter. Basically, every selfie has a fun house mirror effect on your face. That’s a simple matter of perspective. But in the world of selfies, you’re often limited to close up shots because you can only hold a phone at arm’s length, usually. The result has been a rise in people wanting nose jobs because they have a distorted perception of their face thanks to close up selfies. 

8. Arowana Fish Get Plastic Surgery in Asia

Not everyone knows that there have been a fair number of innovations in the world of plastic surgery for animals over the years, often for surprising reasons. Imagine, for instance, a turtle or tortoise injured in a way that nearly destroys their shell. In the past this might have killed the animal, but we can design shells for them now and perform life saving surgery. Then there’s the arowana fish.

In China these fish are a symbol of wealth and status. Why? Why not? Young fish may start at a staggering $1,000 a piece but prices can skyrocket to over $300,000 for others. They can grow to as much as three feet in length and can live for 10 to 20 years. Some owners have spent close to a million dollars establishing aquariums just to show them off. 

Because they are so prized and so valuable, they’re also well taken care of, at least in the minds of their owners. Fish with droopy eyes can be taken to a plastic surgeon to have an eyelift. According to the doctor who performs surgeries like these they’re not cruel because the fish will look better and the owner will love it more as a result. 

7. Takeji Harada Had Six Inches of Silicone Added To His Head To Meet a Sumo Height Requirement

In the world of sports it’s typically against the rules to get any kind of medical intervention that might give you an advantage. But that also usually means you’re getting performance enhancing drugs. It’s rare that plastic surgery could ever help an athlete, but it’s not impossible, as Takeji Harada proved when he found a way to become a professional sumo wrestler. 

It turns out that if you want to be a pro sumo wrestler you need to be at least 5-foot-8. Harada, who was just 16-years-old, was 5-foot-2. After being rejected many times for not meeting height requirements, Harada came up with a new plan. He had six inches of silicone implanted in his scalp, thus giving him the needed height to compete. The move prompted the Japanese Sumo Association to make an official statement saying they would no longer allow people to qualify if they artificially boosted their height. 

Harada apparently spent a year and underwent four procedures to get the required height which, in the end, was literally a six-inch mound on top of his head. Word is another wrestler just bashed his head against a wall so they could measure the bump and he’d qualify as well. 

6. Cinderella Foot Surgery

There’s a clear divide in Western society between traditional men’s and women’s footwear. A lot of women’s footwear is fairly impractical. High heeled shoes require you to walk with your foot at an uncomfortable angle, and they are often very narrow, which can squish a person’s foot. Rather than choosing different footwear, however, some women have opted to choose different feet. The Cinderella surgery allows this to happen by reshaping the foot so it fits into smaller shoes.

One doctor from Beverly Hills started doing the procedure after patients would increasingly bring in the shoes they wanted to fit into. Surgeries can include toe-shortening, toe-lengthening, and a Foot Tuck, which adds padding for wearing heels. 

The process is a bit of a self-fulfilling one as many of the patients only go to a doctor after years of wearing shoes that they shouldn’t be wearing. Their feet become deformed as a result and they need surgery to correct what happened so they can keep wearing the shoes. 

5. Beard Transplant Surgery

Hair transplants are not an entirely new concept by any means, but you may not be aware that beard transplants are also a thing for the man who has issues with growing facial hair. Patchy beards are the bane of many a man’s face, so beard transplant surgery aims to fix that by taking hair from a donor part of a man’s body, say the back of his head, and grafting it onto his face.

You could be looking at 1,000 to 1,500 individual grafts to get the desired effect. The grafted hair will also fall out as a normal part of the process. However, within three months to one year the idea is that it will take root and new hair will start growing on its own. Now whether it comes in as thick, bristly beard hair, or fine hair – like the texture of scalp hair – isn’t really addressed.

4. Abdominal Etching 

A six-pack is more than just a convenient way to enjoy beer, it’s a way to show off your well-sculpted abdominal muscles. Unfortunately, not everyone has the ability or discipline to get their body in that kind of shape. But if you still want abs without the work, maybe surgery can get you there.

Abdominal etching is a kind of liposuction that can help define your stomach muscles when crunches don’t do the trick. Fat is removed in very specific places to help accentuate the musculature, but doctors note it will work best if you already work out and stick to a healthy diet. Consider it a helping hand. 

Post-op, the patient needs to keep the lines compressed during the healing process for two weeks in what sounds a bit like reinforcing wrinkles or folds in clothing. 

3. Snapchat Filter Surgeries

We already saw how a selfie can distort someone’s body image enough to make them want surgery, but that was almost understandable. The image is being distorted, which gives the individual an incorrect perception of themselves. It’s based on an illusion. The rise in Snapchat filter surgery is a little harder to account for because, in this case, people are intentionally distorting their appearance and then wanting the reality to match it. 

Snapchat’s rise to fame in the late 2010s brought about what some called Snapchat Dysmorphia. Snapchat (and now most image-based apps do the same) allows for the application of various filters and manipulation techniques that changes the way you look in your photo. 

Filters can sometimes make drastic appearance changes, but there are many more subtle ones that might make your eyes bigger and brighter, your skin smoother and lighter, and so on. Doctors began seeing a rise in patients wanting their real appearance to mimic that filtered appearance, even when it was not even realistic. 

The result is more procedures using face fillers, Botox, nose jobs, and so on. Doctors would see patients who brought in photos of themselves with filtered features instead of pictures of celebrities they wanted to look like. Some were so unrealistic the doctors had to turn the potential patients down by telling them what they were looking for was literally impossible. 

2. Dimpleplasty

Despite how well known the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is, people are still quick to point to specific things that are apparently beautiful. You can Google it and get lists of features that might include full lips or high cheek bones, among others. Another fairly well known feature considered attractive are dimples. There’s a sense that dimples imply youthfulness and innocence. And since not everyone naturally has dimples, plastic surgery is there to ensure you at least have the option.

Dimpleplasty is the all-too-obvious name for the procedure that seeks to simply mimic the defect in cheek musculature that would normally cause a dimple. The process may require some muscle tissue to be removed, or just anchoring skin to soft tissue with sutures. For many it’s a very simple procedure that just requires a local anesthetic. 

1. Pet Plastic Surgery

The pet plastic surgery industry is about as weird as you might guess. The variety of procedures is not as high as it is for humans, but much of it still plays to vanity, but a sort of vanity-by-proxy since it’s unlikely the pets know or care that they look a certain way.

Neuticles have existed since the mid-1990s and they are an artificial testicle replacement for neutered animals. According to the company website the purpose is to help “neuter-hesitant pet owners overcome the trauma of altering and allowing their beloved pet to retain its natural look and self-esteem.” Some vets agree that it’s a great idea. Some think it’s completely ridiculous and just for insecure owners. The product has made its inventor a millionaire, however, so a lot of people are on board. 

The full range of pet surgery can be unexpected. Aside from testicular implants, people are giving their pets Botox for wrinkles and nose jobs, both of which could have practical and even life-saving reasons for certain breeds. Many pug-faced breeds do have breathing issues, and some of the wrinklier breeds can develop dangerous infections. But then there are also tummy tucks, eye lifts and even braces.

Many of the procedures are intended to improve the dog’s quality of life, though it’s debatable whether a neutered dog has any idea that it lost its testicles and now has a new pair thanks to Neuticles.

Most plastic or cosmetic surgery is apparent to the naked eye: Her breasts look bigger (or smaller or higher). His nose looks straighter. But some plastic surgery results are visible only to the recipient (and perhaps their significant other).

Requests for plastic surgery on genitalia are on the rise, motivated by desires for an improved self-image or increased sexual satisfaction. And while most plastic surgery procedures are performed on women (about 80 percent, in fact), it turns out that more men than women request work on their private parts.

This list reveals some of the procedures that are currently on the menu. Would you consider going under the knife down there?

10 Monsplasty

The mons pubis, or mons, is the triangular fatty pad covering the pubic bone, running from the top of the pubic hair down to the genitals. Both men and women have it, but it’s more obvious in women. The surgery is more popular with women, but men can also receive the benefits.

Fat accumulation and loose skin—from weight gain/loss, aging, C-section, hormones, even genetics—can lead to an enlarged mons. Monsplasty removes excess skin and fatty tissue to give the mons a firmer, flatter appearance.

While many cosmetic procedures involve liposuction to remove fat, monsplasty is surgery that uses a scalpel to remove the offending skin and fat. The procedure often accompanies a tummy tuck because a bulging mons pubis is often more noticeable after removing fatty tissue and tightening the skin on your abdomen.

While the procedure delivers aesthetic improvements, it has other benefits as well, making intercourse, urination, and even hygiene easier.^[1]

9 Labiaplasty

A labiaplasty is a vaginal rejuvenation (or “designer vagina”) procedure. Vaginal rejuvenation often involves lasers, ultrasound, or other energy devices to tighten the vaginal area. But a labiaplasty is surgery that reduces the size/shape of a woman’s genitalia.

The labia can become enlarged due to childbirth, aging, sexual activity, or genetics. The condition, when revealed by form-fitting clothing, is sometimes referred to as “camel toe” or “crotch cleavage.” An enlarged labia can cause difficulties with exercise, sex, and hygiene and may lead to urinary tract infections. It can also interfere with wearing clothes like yoga pants and swimsuits.

There are different ways to reduce the size of the labia (e.g., trim procedure, wedge procedure). The overall goal is to remove the excess part of the labia minora (the inner tissues of the female genitalia), so it lines up with the labia majora (outer part).^[2]

8 Clitoral Hood Reduction

The skin fold that covers and protects the clitoris is called the clitoral hood. The clitoris contains thousands of sensory nerve endings and is extremely sensitive. The clitoral hood protects the clitoris from friction and clothing that could irritate it. It also makes a lubricant (sebum) that helps the hood glide over the sensitive clitoris. When a woman is sexually aroused, the clitoris becomes engorged. This swelling pulls back the clitoral hood (much like the foreskin of a penis) and aids in a woman’s ability to achieve orgasm.

Some women may want to reduce their clitoral hood to eliminate discomfort. Women who’ve had the above-described labiaplasty may find their clitoral hood looks top-heavy. Other women may simply want to increase sexual clitoral sensation by exposing more of their clitoris. Each of these things can be addressed with a vaginal rejuvenation procedure called a clitoral hood reduction.

The clitoral hood reduction (aka clitoral hoodectomy, clitoral hoodoplasty, clitorial unhooding) reduces the excess tissue in the folds of the clitoris. The outpatient procedure involves trimming the skin and suturing with disposable stitches. The surgery should result in better-looking and more comfortable genitals.^[3]

7 Hymenoplasty

The hymen is the thin membrane that partially covers the vagina. In many cultures, an intact hymen is thought to be a sign of virginity, but penetrative sex isn’t the only cause of a torn hymen. The membrane can be torn by exercise, horseback or bicycle riding, tampon insertion, masturbation, or a pap smear.

Women who want to restore their hymen can opt for a hymenoplasty, also known as hymenorrhaphy or temporary hymen reconstruction. The desire to do so isn’t always cosmetic. It might stem from the cultural or religious belief that a woman must prove her virginity on her wedding night. For women who have been sexually abused or traumatized, the procedure may provide psychological and emotional relief.

With this surgery, a thin layer of tissue is taken from the vaginal wall and placed in the location of the torn hymen. The restored hymen will tighten the vaginal opening and—like the original hymen—may or may not bleed upon penetration.

This procedure, which is illegal in some European countries, provides no greater medical or physical benefit.^[4]

6 Labia Majora Augmentation with Fat Grafting

A woman who wants to plump up her labia might opt for dermal fillers like those used to make lips larger. But there’s also a longer-lasting surgical alternative: labia majora augmentation with autologous fat transfer.

This outpatient surgery liposuctions fat from the patient’s abdomen, hips, or flanks and transfers it to the labia majora. The intent is to improve the fullness and firmness of the labia majora and eliminate sagging skin for a more youthful-looking appearance.^[6]

5 G-Spot Amplification

G-Spot amplification is another surgical procedure that aims to improve a woman’s self-esteem, sensation, and libido. It also involves using autologous fat transfer. This method seeks to magnify the G-Spot up to four times and is also known as G-Shot or G-Spot augmentation.

A German doctor named Dr. Gräfenberg was the first to describe the concept of the G-Spot, an area on the front inner wall of the vagina. The procedure includes an injection of hyaluronic acid or collagen filler to this erogenous area. It is believed that this procedure increases the sensitivity, the duration of female orgasms, and their frequency.^[6]

Don’t worry, guys. We haven’t forgotten about you. The rest of this list is dedicated solely to you…

4 Penis Lengthening Surgery

A man’s perception of his genitals is directly related to his self-esteem and sexual identity. That may be why men are all-in on this cosmetic trend.

There is rarely a medical need for penis enlargement surgery. The Urology Care Foundation says it’s only necessary in cases of micropenis—an abnormally small penis caused by hormonal or genetic issues. The average penis size for an adult is 13.24 centimeters (5.21 inches) when stretched. A stretched penile length of less than 9.3 centimeters (3.66 inches) is considered a micropenis. However, the majority of men seeking this type of surgery have a penis of “normal” size.

Penis elongation surgery is a bit of a misnomer. In this procedure, the suspensory ligament that attaches the penis to the pelvic bone is cut. The enables the flaccid penis to hang lower and look slightly larger even though its size has not been altered. Sometimes a skin graft is necessary to complete the surgery. Complications are a concern. Wound separation, scarring, pubic depression, or hairlessness may occur. The penis may develop an unnatural hump at the base, while a change in the angle of erection may also result.

The penile length gained may increase by a centimeter (less than ½ an inch) or so, but it’s possible that no lengthening results. Using weights or stretching devices postoperatively—and for a period of months to years—may allow additional length gain. Removing the fat from the area around the penis can also make it look bigger than it is.^[7]

3 Penile Girth Augmentation

Increasing penile girth is another sought-after cosmetic procedure. Achieving good results (i.e., symmetrically increased girth) is difficult. Girth surgery can lead to severe complications and deformities.

The patient’s own fat is injected into the penis. If the injections are irregular or too much fat is injected, unsightly nodules may occur. Asymmetry and loss of penile rigidity due to excess fat are other complications.

Alternatively, skin grafts can be used to increase girth by up to 4 centimeters (1.5 inches). The grafts are secured around the circumference of the penis with sutures. Severe complications (scar formation, penile shortening, penile curvature) may result if the grafts do not survive completely.

Some practitioners inject synthetic materials, such as liquid silicone or hyaluronic acid, to enhance girth. Injections may provide a good short-term appearance, but long-term results are unlikely.^[8]

2 Testicular Implants

There are many medical conditions that can contribute to the size and symmetry of testicles: infections, tumors, medication, or genetics. Some men are simply born with one testicle, uneven testicles, or testicles that fail to descend. And some men are sensitive about these “abnormalities.”

A testicular prosthesis is an artificial testicle implanted in the scrotum to provide the appearance of the real thing. Like saline-filled breast implants, testicular implants can be made to the size and consistency desired by the patient.

This minor outpatient surgery can be completed in about 30 minutes. Pain meds and antibiotics are typically prescribed, and the surgical stitches eventually dissolve on their own. Gentle manipulation of the area will help the implant settle in a natural position. Regular exercise and activity can resume around two weeks after the procedure.^[9]

1 Scrotoplasty

A man’s scrotum can become stretched and loose due to genetics, aging, trauma, or injury. Many men, both young and old, struggle with scrotums that are sagging, large, or low-hanging. In extreme cases, a stretched scrotum can cause painful chafing, interfere with sexual intercourse, or even reach the water when the toilet is being used. Men with stretched scrotums complain of discomfort, hygiene concerns, sexual problems, and overall embarrassment and low self-esteem. Nonsurgical treatment involves wearing supportive underwear or a jockstrap, which may slow but not stop the sagging.
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Scrotoplasty (aka scrotum reduction, scrotal lift) removes excess skin from the scrotum to improve appearance and comfort. The result is a tighter, smaller, rejuvenated scrotum. It’s a fairly simple procedure that can boost a man’s self-confidence and pleasure during sex.

The outpatient surgery does not interfere with the testicles or fertility. The majority of men undergoing this procedure are over age 40. Consider rest, scrotal elevation, and ice compresses for several days after the operation to help with healing. Avoiding constipation, straining, and heavy lifting are encouraged. Most patients return to regular activities and sexual intercourse within three weeks.^[10]