Postoperative complications in a teaching surgical ward

UNLABELLED: Definitive cure of the disease is the essential aim of surgical proceeding. However in some patients who are operated on, unwanted events happen, which make complete recovery delayed or even impossible. These events are known as surgical complications. THE AIM: Presentation of quantitive and qualitative analysis of surgical complications registered in one year of surgical practice of Department of General Surgery, Orlowski Hospital, Warsaw. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In the period between 1.01 and 31.12.2004 we operated on 1384 patients. Complications were registered prospectively, during monthly analysis of patients' medical records. RESULTS: From the number of 1384 patients operated on, 132 patients developed 141 complications (10.2% complication rate in 9.5% patients). CONCLUSIONS: The number of surgical complications reported by other authors differs. This can be explained by differences in methodology of collecting data of complications between the studies. Registering of postoperative morbidity is an important issue in surgical practice. Analysis of complications can lead to improvement in quality of surgical care and health-care management. Introduction of unified system of registration of postoperative complications in all surgical wards would allow making an objective ranking of surgical wards on a given area.