Multi-tasking surgeons put patients as risk
New study shows danger of overlapping surgeries
Doctors who oversee overlapping surgeries at the same time have nearly twice the complications of those who focus on one surgery at a time, according to a recent study.
Researchers found the longer the overlap between the two surgeries, the higher the risk. This large-scale study looked at 90,000 hip operations at 75 hospitals in Ontario, Canada.
“If your surgeon is in multiple places, there’s an increased risk of having a complication. I think that just makes sense,” study author Dr. Bheeshma Ravi, a hip surgeon at Sunnybrook Health Services, told The Boston Globe.
While other studies have not found a difference, the size and scale of this study was significantly larger.
“This study shuts the door on the idea that simultaneous surgery is as safe as solo surgery,” Dr. James Rickert, a surgeon and president of the Society for Patient Centered Orthopedics told the Boston Globe.
“The most important aspect of this practice involves transparency and consent,” wrote Dr. Alan L. Zhang in an opinion piece that accompanied the study. Dr. Zhang is an orthopedic surgeon at the University of California San Francisco. “Some patients may be averse to having their surgery overlap while others ambivalent, but informed consent should be necessary for all.”