Editor's Note A balanced approach to leveraging AI in surgical decision making should be taken to weigh the benefits of increased efficiency and potential accuracy of using AI against the principles of medical ethics such as patient autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice, authors recently advised in the November issue of…

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Editor's Note Obesity is a key driver of earlier total hip arthroplasty (THA) and elevated perioperative risk, according to findings published October 29 in Surgeries. While THA is a well-known intervention for older adults with end-stage hip osteoarthritis, the researchers reported a link between an increase in obesity and the…

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Editor's Note The incidence of surgical patients being discharged against medical advice is increasing, leading to a subsequent rise in postoperative complications and readmissions, according to new published research. The investigators evaluated trends, risk factors, and postoperative outcomes among surgical patients who were discharged against medical advice and their findings…

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Editor's note A liberal blood transfusion strategy after major vascular or general surgery for patients at high risk of a cardiac event did not reduce 90-day death or major ischemic outcome rates compared with a restrictive strategy, according to results from the Transfusion Trigger after Operations in High Cardiac Risk…

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Editor's note Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) guidelines continue to evolve for specific procedures with the goal to optimize patient recovery and surgical outcome. There is a recognized need for consensus on ERAS recommendations specific to surgery for moderate to severe degenerative cervical myelopathy (DMC)—progressive compression of the spinal cord…

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Editor's Note Surgical procedures frequently produce specimens for pathology to confirm diagnosis and ensure quality control. However, common errors such as look-alike sound-alike specimen labeling inaccuracies can compromise patient safety and negatively impact workflow efficiency, as discussed in an October 28 improvement brief in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality…

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Editor's Note Olympus Corporation announced a voluntary, global medical device corrective action to provide further clarification on the safe and effective use of bronchoscopes with laser therapy, argon plasma coagulation or high-frequency cauterization equipment during therapeutic procedures within the tracheobronchial tree, according to a November 3 notification from the US…

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Editor's Note A Johns Hopkins team is reporting unprecedented success in preventing pancreatic cancer recurrence by combining pre-surgical and intraoperative radiation focused on a key anatomical area near the pancreas, News Medical Life Sciences October 30 reports. Citing a Johns Hopkins Medicine preliminary study, this approach reportedly reduced recurrence around…

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Editor's Note Healthcare systems are finding that ambient AI built for doctors does not automatically translate to nursing care, HealthLeaders November 4 reports. However, Mercy for instance is piloting Microsoft’s Dragon Copilot AI for nursing and discovering that the nurse-patient encounter requires tailored design and training to capture accurate, useful…

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When it comes to treating chronic pain—or pain associated with surgery—clinicians are always looking for alternatives to opioids. “There are zero advantages to chronic opioid use,” says Earl Kilbride, MD, MHA, an orthopedic surgeon at the Austin Orthopedic Institute. While the US makes up about 4.4% of the global population,…

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