Results of our new research, a collaboration between our team of scientists at the Universities of Sheffield, Birmingham and Edinburgh, has shown that patients undergoing emergency surgery in lower-income countries have a three times greater chance of dying than in higher income countries. The study monitored post-surgery death rates and mapped them against the Human […]
I remember very clearly the first time I walked onto the intensive care unit (ICU). The first thing that struck me was that so many of the patients were sitting up, awake. The unit was almost full and in three open bay areas of four beds each nearly everyone had visitors, and most were engaged […]
Outcomes data is information about the results of surgery that can be published and used by surgeons, patients and hospitals to ultimately improve safety and quality. The government in 2013 made a commitment to produce individual surgeons’ outcome data, from national clinical audits. In 2013, the Royal College of Surgeons published the first set of […]
My heart sank when Health minister Jeremy Hunt announced that league tables for surgeons would be published back in 2014. As a consultant surgeon at one of the UK’s leading teaching hospitals, I knew that he meant well but, as I expected, the new league tables have damaged patient confidence, undermined surgeons’ morale and mislead […]
Read More… from Lies, damned lies and surgical league tables
Following a spate of drive by acid attacks on men in East London, there are calls for tighter laws to penalise those people who use acid as a weapon. Put your hands up to your face and carefully feel your eyelids, followed by your cheeks and then the tip of your nose. What you can […]
Read More… from Acid attacks – A challenge for reconstructive surgeons
One of the biggest challenges facing us in modern surgery is how to take tomorrow’s surgeons from relative novices to the expert that you and I would wish to have repair a vital organ. There was a time not so long ago when young surgeons practised their embryonic skills on patients in the middle of […]
Read More… from Through the keyhole – improving surgical skills
MATTU, the UK’s first International Centre of Telemedicine based at Surrey University and the Royal Surrey County Hospital, has telementoring facilities that links to hospitals and research centres all over the world. A advanced operating theatre allows key-hole specialist surgeons to coach people from as far afield as China, the East Coast of America and […]
Read More… from Telementoring in surgery is a global revolution
When Phillipe Bozzini first designed and used his Lichtleiter in 1803 to peer into the human body, the medical world unwittingly became reliant on observing the endoscopic view of the human body in only two dimensions and this was 35 years before the mechanism of depth perception was even understood. In 1838 Charles Wheatstone was […]
In my view, robotic surgery is superior to an open radical prostatectomy. For one thing, you get a much better view of the pelvis with a robotic prostatectomy and there is less bleeding. There is also less damage to surrounding tissues and a quicker recovery time. I advise men that it is important to ask […]
Obesity generally takes years to develop and hence is usually a disease of the middle-aged. Children do, of course, become obese, but any child with severe obesity should first be investigated for an underlying genetic, medical or psychological cause. Sometimes these can be corrected with great efficacy. Failing this the next steps would be to […]
Read More… from Why children should be given diet and exercise tips, NOT surgery