Necessity for surgical audit.

For me the word audit has two meanings. Firstly, the regular study and analysis of facts about patients directly under one's own care; secondly, a more public accounting for practices, errors, and mishaps. The distinotion is more than trivial in my specialty, for while the one may be accepted the other may be equally as strongly resisted or its purpose vitiated by the emotions it arouses. It is useful therefore to consider the two separately.