Should Trauma Surgeons Perform Neurosurgery in Emergencies?

Should trauma surgeons do general surgery?

OBJECTIVE Many trauma centers have separated emergency and general surgery from trauma care. However, decreased trauma volume and more frequent nonoperative management may limit operative experience and the economic viability of the trauma service. Trauma surgeons at our Level I trauma center have long provided all emergency surgical care and elective surgery. We sought to determine the impact ...

Who should perform thoracoscopy?

When should surgeons retire?

BACKGROUND Retirement policies for surgeons differ worldwide. A range of normal human functional abilities decline as part of the ageing process. As life expectancy and their population increases, the performance ability of ageing surgeons is now a growing concern in relation to patient care. The aim was to explore the effects of ageing on surgeons' performance, and to identify current practica...

Training non-surgeons to perform resuscitative thoracotomy

Professor Moritz Schiff, a distinguished 19th century physiologist, provided the first description of thoracotomy, open cardiac massage and aortic compression for the resuscitation of cardiac arrest in 1874 [1] . In 1896, Ludwig Rehn performed the first successful thoracotomy, pericardotomy and cardiac wound repair on a young man dying from cardiac tamponade following a right ventricle stab wou...

What should be done in acute emergencies?

SIR—Davis (Sept 28, p 868) convincingly challenges the assumption that children under age 5 years can be singled out as the most vulnerable group during acute emergencies and that, as a result, emergency public health interventions can be reduced to a standard package of child survival measures. We have witnessed in refugee camps how such focused strategies channelled a disproportionate share o...