The American College of Surgeons (ACS) has revised its Statement on Principles on the responsibility of the primary surgeon during surgery with new language on concurrent, overlapping, and multidisciplinary operations.
Recent news reports had raised questions about surgeons initiating a second surgery before the first surgery was finished, the American Hospital Association (AHA) said. These reports led to a discussion of why surgeons might leave an operating room during a surgery and the actions that are needed to inform the patient and ensure patient safety, according to the AHA.
ACS states: “The primary attending surgeon is personally responsible for the patient’s welfare throughout the operation. In general, the patient’s primary attending surgeon should be in the operating suite or be immediately available for the entire surgical procedure. There are instances consistent with good patient care that are valid exceptions. However, when the primary attending surgeon is not present or immediately available, another attending surgeon should be assigned as being immediately available.”
The ACS also says, “A primary attending surgeon’s involvement in concurrent or simultaneous surgeries on two different patients in two different rooms is not appropriate.” (To see the revised statement, go to http://bit.ly/1Mwqq8a. For more information on this topic, see “Are concurrent surgeries a good tool to save time and money? Experts express caution,” Same-Day Surgery, February 2016, at http://bit.ly/1V7wHsB.)
