Surgical Risk

Well readers here is another installment. This time about the age old question - surgical risk. As we see more and more patients who are beyond 75 years of age, the question of risk of surgery continues to be one which challenges everyone = patients, relatives, physcians. The Society for Decision Analysis has provided a forum for this discussion for decades and yet the very practical and useful information needed is still missing. The focus on outcomes research has added another dimension of confusion. As usual it is often from celebrities or famous individuals that an interest in areas of medicine are stimilated to public interest. The recent surgeries of former President Bill Clinton brought into focus the concept of institutional morbidity and mortality when the hospital he chose was exposed for its high mortality rate from the New York heart surgery data. The real problems are in narrowing the focus for individuals and unfortunately, we still can not do that very well yet.