LESSONS TO BE LEARNED LESSONS TO BE AVOIDED IN THE FUTURE

Abstract

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED LESSONS TO BE AVOIDED IN THE FUTURE Thamer A Hamdan MB,ChB, FRCS, FICS, FACS, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Chancellor of Basrah University, Basrah, IRAQ. It is a well-known fact that lucky is the one whose mistakes can be counted. There is not a single surgeon who has not had complications of one type or another. Those who deny complications either have not done enough surgery or not telling the truth. I Surgeons may have complications in spite of good judgment and proper execution of surgical procedures. Simply speaking, complications should be the pillars for future rectification of personal and colleague’s careers. It is a shame when surgeons discover at time of surgery, that something was missed prior to putting the knife on the patient’s body. Certainly, this situation is embarrassing or even perplexing for the surgeon, because he may feel, he do not know how to behave when he faces a surprise. It is really painful when he feels he is guilty by the sin of omission or commission. At the same time, we should admit that we have faced some unexpected findings at the time of surgery. However, we may not be blamed because this was not due to lack of proper pre-operative evaluation but because of similarities of clinical manifestations or due to masking of the cardinal clinical features. One of the best example is emergency operation for acute appendicitis, while the operative findings are suggestive of ovarian cys