I saw one of those real life investigation programs the other night and after surgery a man had terrible pain and returned to the surgeon who assured him it was normal. When the pain persisted a visit to the hospital where the surgery was done resulted in a diagnosis of normal recovery plains. Then weeks later the pain worsened and the patient went to his family’s general practitioner who took an Xray and found a foot long metal device in his stomach. So much for ethics and patient concern and attention to detail even when a man’s life is at stake and the bill is in the 10s of thousand$.
I wonder why surgeons don’t routinely run a l metal detector over the patient prior to closing?
Perhaps they’re afraid of what they’ll find? 
If the patient has any kind of implant, such as a pacemaker, defibrillator, knee replacement, hip replacement, aluminum foil in your hat, etc., you’ll set off the metal detector every time.
If the surgical incision is closed using staples instead of sutures it wouldn’t matter anyway 
They could shoot an X-Ray I suppose, but for something that happens so incredibly rarely why hit someone with ionizing radiation if they don’t have to?
Metal detectors should not be necessary anyway.
One of the responsibilities of the surgical nurse is to act as a backup to the surgeon in ensuring that whatever hardware went into the patient comes back out. Sounds like there was simply a sloppy and undisciplined surgical team. Sloppy surgeons unfortunately are not unique. We’re all fortunate that they’re not more common.
Oh they’re definitely not necessary. A continuous account of instruments used is taken during and compared before the patient is closed up. I had the unfortunate experience to deal with one of those sloppy surgeon’s last year when my wife had her gallbladder out (no instrument left in fortunately!)…the guy had only just regained privileges at the hospital I work at. Needless to say we’re doing everything we can to make sure his privileges will be revoked and not renewed again