by Rune Trangbæk, PhD student, M.D.

In abdominal surgery, when emergency and high risk is combined, it should concern everyone.

From hospital entry through surgery and all the way to the discharge patient undergoing emergency surgery may come across the board of numerous medical specialties.
The first one to see and identify the surgical patient could be anyone, both nurses and doctors, and doctors of all kinds in any ward imaginable. It all starts here and should not be taken lightly as time and physiology is against the patients odds.
The world of emergency surgery is waking up to the fact that emergencies have been forgotten. We have spend our meetings and research investigating and optimizing other aspects of surgery. Time has come for the high risk emergency surgeries and the time is now.
Pathways and algorithms have been popping up everywhere, and it’s working. So far, our algorithm has cut the 30-day mortality in half, and as we improve the mortality keeps going down.
The keyword for these pathways is STANDARDISING.
Make sure you have a plan and then stick to it. This is how we don’t miss important aspects, this is how we save lives.