What is surgery?

In busy work, it is difficult for doctors to have time to think about this problem.

At present, in some large medical centers, treating patients and performing surgery seems to have become an assembly-line work. When the patient recovers smoothly without complications after surgery, doctors will be complacent about their skills. However, when patients have serious postoperative complications or even death, they have to step on the brakes and think about it: What does Surgery bring to the patient? What is the purpose of Surgery? Which patients should receive surgery?

In fact, when we look back at the history of the development of surgery, we will find that these questions have clear answers.

What is the reason for the continuous evolution of surgery?

The earliest surgical operation was to help patients stop bleeding. Then the doctor discovered that amputation was necessary to save the lives of wounded soldiers on the battlefield. This is also the most important type of surgery in the early stage.

We can imagine how horrible it was for patients to undergo amputations and other major operations in great pain when there was only a soldering iron and no anesthesia. His painful impression made "surgery" once synonymous with "barbaric". This is obviously contrary to the original intention of surgical treatment.

Since then, doctors have made unremitting efforts to alleviate the pain caused by surgery, and gradually realized the three cornerstones of surgery: anesthesia, hemostasis, and disinfection. Since then, surgical operations have been guaranteed to be safe and developed rapidly, becoming a real treatment method.

With the obvious improvement of the safety of surgery and the gradual deepening of surgeons' understanding of anatomy, the updating of imaging equipment, the continuous improvement of surgical instruments, the gradual expansion of indications for surgical operations, and the entering of the era of major surgery.

Many treatments that existed in imagination in the past are now possible. For example, doctors once dreamed of stopping the heart and opening the chest cavity to treat patients with heart disease. The invention of the extracorporeal circulation system made this vision a reality. For liver failure caused by hepatitis and severe cirrhosis, surgeons can save the lives of patients through liver transplantation. More than 10,000 kidney transplants performed by doctors each year have become a mature method to save the lives of uremia patients.

Surgery has become an important way for doctors to help patients. Every advancement in surgical technology and the development of related technologies such as anesthesia and hemostasis is to meet the needs of patients.

Regardless of whether the operation is simple or complicated, it is to benefit the patient, either to extend the patient’s survival time or to improve the patient’s quality of life. In fact, this is exactly the core content of the Hippocratic Oath: I am willing to do my best to follow the creed of working for the benefit of the sick family.

In the diagnosis and treatment activities, doctors keep these principles in mind, which will make many decisions simple and easy.