diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b36b689b60..0382235e90 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -44,7 +44,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
   ([#3836](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python-contrib/pull/3836))
 - `opentelemetry-instrumentation-elasticsearch`: Enhance elasticsearch query body sanitization
   ([#3919](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python-contrib/pull/3919)) 
-
+- `opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo`: Fix span error descriptions
+  ([#3904](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python-contrib/pull/3904))
 
 ## Version 1.38.0/0.59b0 (2025-10-16)
 
diff --git a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/pymongo/__init__.py b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/pymongo/__init__.py
index 7ada8d789a..af2a3f7f02 100644
--- a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/pymongo/__init__.py
+++ b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/pymongo/__init__.py
@@ -198,7 +198,12 @@ def failed(self, event: monitoring.CommandFailedEvent):
         if span is None:
             return
         if span.is_recording():
-            span.set_status(Status(StatusCode.ERROR, event.failure))
+            span.set_status(
+                Status(
+                    StatusCode.ERROR,
+                    event.failure.get("errmsg", "Unknown error"),
+                )
+            )
             try:
                 self.failed_hook(span, event)
             except (
diff --git a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/tests/test_pymongo.py b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/tests/test_pymongo.py
index 8b082a4a14..9d9f817466 100644
--- a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/tests/test_pymongo.py
+++ b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-pymongo/tests/test_pymongo.py
@@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ def test_failed(self):
             failed_hook=self.failed_callback,
         )
         command_tracer.started(event=mock_event)
+        mock_event.mark_as_failed()
         command_tracer.failed(event=mock_event)
 
         spans_list = self.memory_exporter.get_finished_spans()
@@ -137,7 +138,7 @@ def test_failed(self):
             span.status.status_code,
             trace_api.StatusCode.ERROR,
         )
-        self.assertEqual(span.status.description, "failure")
+        self.assertEqual(span.status.description, "operation failed")
         self.assertIsNotNone(span.end_time)
         self.start_callback.assert_called_once()
         self.failed_callback.assert_called_once()
@@ -149,6 +150,7 @@ def test_multiple_commands(self):
         command_tracer.started(event=first_mock_event)
         command_tracer.started(event=second_mock_event)
         command_tracer.succeeded(event=first_mock_event)
+        second_mock_event.mark_as_failed()
         command_tracer.failed(event=second_mock_event)
 
         spans_list = self.memory_exporter.get_finished_spans()
@@ -291,6 +293,16 @@ def __init__(self, command_attrs, connection_id=None, request_id=""):
         self.command_name = self.command.get("command_name")
         self.connection_id = connection_id
         self.request_id = request_id
+        self.failure = None
+
+    def mark_as_failed(self):
+        # CommandFailedEvent.failure is type _DocumentOut, which pymongo defines as:
+        # ```
+        # _DocumentOut = Union[MutableMapping[str, Any], "RawBSONDocument"]
+        # ```
+        # we go with the former, but both provide a `.get(key, default)` method.
+        #
+        self.failure = {"errmsg": "operation failed"}
 
     def __getattr__(self, item):
         return item