It’s not an excuse, but with the procedure being laproscopic, the field of view is narrow enough that a nonsurgeon might not recognize which organ was being removed. I also wonder if the patient had Situs Inversus ( where the liver and spleen are on opposite sides from normal.
Laproscopic....that’s a small incision procedure, right? By the time he realized it’s not the spleen he’s removing through that small incision, it was probably too late.
Re: situs inversus, nah. Any patient having a splenectomy would have had some kind of enhanced imaging or ultrasound first. Where that would have been revealed.