Surgeons Say 'We Can Fix It,' Patients May Misunderstand Risks

medscape

 ....Another flaw (we can fix it) is the assumption that surgery will return patients back to how they normally were before they got sick or hurt. "For many patients, especially patients with lots of medical problems who need big operations, they are not normal after surgery."
Schwarze and colleagues analyzed 48 recordings of surgeons explaining high-risk operations to patients treated at three different academic hospitals in Madison, Boston and Toronto and found that variations on the "fix-it" theme regularly cropped up in these conversations.
Researchers reviewed transcripts of the discussions to see how surgeons deployed "fix-it" analogies to describe operations, which included various heart and brain surgeries as well as complex tumor-removal procedures.......Patients need to understand their condition, and know that sometimes the surgery can ease symptoms but can't solve the underlying problem, he said. Symptom relief can also be an open question......


 

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