Surgeons say minor unintentional damage can happen during surgery, and much of that goes unreported. They say they would be prepared to use robotic tools if they could be shown to help.
Antibiotics are administered to surgery patients to prevent infections.
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Successfully separating conjoined twins is a complex operation that depends on how they are joined as well as the experience and skill of the surgical team.
Society has long treated people with extra limbs as anatomical oddities. But having an extra body part or organ is surprisingly common and many people don’t know they have them.
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Of the 22,713 weight loss operations performed in 2014-15, about 90% were performed in private hospitals, highlighting the difficulty in accessing this type of surgery through the public system.
If the thought of undergoing surgery fills you with dread, spare a thought for your forebears.
Feeling tired or being unable to concentrate is common even days after surgery. But there are simple ways to help speed up your recovery.
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Some people can feel drowsy or can’t concentrate days after an operation. While it’s easy to blame the anaesthetics, the real picture is usually more complicated.
Worth doing? Make an informed choice.
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A placebo is an important tool for finding out if a treatment works or not. A dummy pill is one thing, but is it right to perform placebo surgery on someone?
A common operation to treat vaginal prolapse using an artificially grafted mesh has women needing repeat surgery due to mesh exposure, and suffering from bladder injury and urinary incontinence.
Doctors currently have no perfectly reliable way of ensuring patients are adequately unconscious before an operation begins.
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Measuring certain kinds of brain activity may help doctors track and predict how patients will react to anaesthesia before going under for surgery, our research has found.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne