Surgery

Surgery is the field of Medicine that focuses on operative treatments of the body.

Evidence-based Surgery

"The turning point in the evolution of evidence-based surgery can be attributed to Ernest Amory Codman who, in 1910, began efforts to reform clinical medicine and surgery... Codman created a case monitoring system in 1900 to record outcomes."(reference for quote: Toby A. Gordon:Chapter 14 - Evidence-Based Surgery.in Greenfield's Surgery: Scientific Principles and Practice. 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Philadelphia) His was the first system in which the outcome of a large number of individual patients were compared according to the operation performed, and the surgeon performing the operation.

Risks of surgery

The risks any surgical procedure include potential harm from the actual operative procedure, anesthesia and other medications administered, and postoperative complications from wound healing or restricted activity.

• Idiosyncratic reactions to anesthetic medications
• Thromboembolic disease such as pulmonary embolus or deep venous thrombosis
• Postoperative wound infections
• Excessive intraoperative or postoperative bleeding
• Cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack or stroke
• Endotracheal tube complications, such as laryngeal damage, or trauma to the hypopharynx

• Soft tissue graft failure
• Bone Osteonecrosis

Patients undergo a counseling session to understand the risks and benefits of the procedure, and the treating healthcare worker must obtain informed consent before proceeding.