Yes. I said it. In writing. On the internet. Complications happen.
The best surgeon, the best OR, the best anesthesia can’t promise it won’t happen.
They have a famous saying when you are a surgery residency intern (when you are just out of medical school in your first year of residency): if you haven’t gotten a pneumothorax when you put in a central line, you haven’t done enough central lines. In English this means inevitably, when you have done 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 surgeries, you will eventually get a complication. And you could review that surgery and complication (as you will review it as part of peer review), you could research it, you could discuss it with all of your colleagues, and you might not find anything you would have done differently.
Now don’t go hyperventilating off into cyberspace and scare yourself to death. Most complications are rare. Most are treatable. In my field, most are just a bump in the road and have little long lasting effects.
There are small complications, like a slightly wider or elevated scar. There are bigger complications, like a bleed which requires a return to the OR, or a DVT which can cause pulmonary embolism (most of which have little effect, but if big enough are dangerous). And then there is the biggest complication, death.
So I write this blog as a reminder to take surgery seriously. I do. My patients tend to be healthy, in the prime of life, and most are moms. Particularly for elective surgery, you need to be safe. My recommendations:
- Be honest with your doctor. If you smoke, take medications, have hepatitis or other chronic diseases, tell your doctor. These can have large ramifications on surgery and anesthesia.
- Find a doctor who is qualified, board certified, and available when you need them. A good surgeon has few complications, and the true test of a good doctor is how they handle the rare complication when they get it.
- Follow instructions. When your doctor tells you not to shower, don’t lift anything heavy, take it easy, no Advil or aspirin, etc etc, they likely have a good reason for it. Listen to them.