DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) - A woman is suing a doctor who operated on her, accusing him of leaving a 4-inch metal instrument in her uterus.

The lawsuit filed in Montour County Court says Dr. Samuel Owusu operated on Lori Klinger, now 35, in November 2002. Klinger said she was in severe pain when she returned home and called her doctor. According to the lawsuit, Owusu told Klinger her pain was normal and told her to take pain medication.

Two days later, she went to the bathroom, and the instrument emerged from her vagina, the lawsuit said. Klinger said the instrument was sharp on one end with a rubber bulb on the other. She said she took it to the doctor's office.

"They made it out like it was no big deal,'' she said, though the lawsuit said Owusu did apologize.

"We felt there was a lack of procedures in place, that they should be checking these things,'' said Klinger's lawyer, Jane Sebelin of Drums.

When Owusu was reached for comment Wednesday morning, he referred questions to Geisinger Medical Group. A spokeswoman for Geisinger Medical Group, which is also being sued, declined to comment on Klinger's case because of the lawsuit.

Ramona Conner, a perioperative nursing specialist with the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses, said this mistake happens at least once a year at all hospitals that perform 8,000 to 18,000 surgeries a year.

"It's something we try very much to avoid, but it's also something that we do recognize does happen,'' Conner said.

Conner said most surgical centers use checklists of the instruments to make sure every one that goes into a patient is removed, but accounting for all the instruments is still a challenging task.

"Surgery is extremely complex these days,'' Conner said. "Instrument sets are extremely complex. They have large numbers of instruments on them.''

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health said there are no state requirements regarding instrument counts in operating rooms.