Surgical safety

Excerpt

I am writing this editorial in the heat of the COVID-19 crisis. A huge challenge in dealing with this pandemic is the lack of knowledge about the treatment, risk factors, preventive measures, economic impact of such measures, etc. due to the speed at which it hit us. The current topic issue about surgical safety is the exact opposite of that situation. About 200 years ago, abdominal procedures were almost uniformly fatal due to infection and surgeons chose speed over precision to limit the horrible screaming of their unanesthetized patients [1]. Thousands of scientific breakthroughs later we have perfected the craft and scrutinized every little detail of it. But, we must continue to be vigilant. In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) still counted 7 million surgical patients worldwide who suffered significant (often avoidable) complications with 1 million of them dying during or immediately following surgery [2]. What efforts are possible in everyday practice to get those numbers as low as possible? …