Which surgical specialty has the highest loss of life?

Question

I understand they all work very hard and ave many many people and I never wish anyone to have to go to a surgeon.

Is Emergency trama a specialty because I thought they just took specialists and had them work in the ER..

But I want to become a cardiothoracic or Neurosurgeon, and was wondering if either of these had high losses?

If not what does, and if you know which has the lowest, are there some specialties where you can go your whole job with nobody dieing?Like dermatiology?

Answer 1

Trauma Surgeons have it by far the worst as far as patient mortality goes. Many times they work on patients who have almost no shot of making it. (Oncologists don't have a great success rate either, but they are not surgeons). I really don't know how they do it.

Cardiothoracic (CT) surgeons deal with a pretty high mortality (death) rate too. Cardiologists (who do minor surgical procedures, like in a cath lab) have a better track record.

I'm not sure what the stats are, but I think neurosurgeons probably lose less patients in surgery, or immediately post surgery than CT surgeons. They probably lose more long term on the ICU too. The really depressing thing about neurosurgery is that even if a person survives surgery, there is a pretty high rate of no recovery.

An Emergency Medicine doctor can be quite the specialist in his/her field, especially if they have completed a fellowship (training after they have completed residency).

As for low mortality, dermatology is probably a pretty good pick...though not completely devoid of death. Skin cancer kills.

A pathologist doesn't deal with death at all. Neither does a radiologist. There are very few deaths in pediatrics. (The subspecialties are a different story though). As far as surgeons and low mortality...I would rank ortho and plastics pretty high. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

For the patients or the doctors?

Bear in mind that surgical patients can also suffer fates worse than death!

Emergency Medicine is emerging (heh) as a specialty in many countries, Australia being one of them. There is a separate training program for Emergency Physicians.

The position of Trauma specialist is a bit of a shared responsibility in many hospitals at this point in time. Different hospitals will have trauma run by the department of Surgery, or department if ICU or the Emergency Department ... or combinations of 2 or all 3 in rotation.

Cardiothoracic surgery tends to be branch into those operations where mortality is high - chest trauma surgery, paediatric emergency chest surgery - and those where the mortality is somewhat lower - eg cardiac bypass surgery. In a quiet place like South Australia where there is not much chest trauma (very few gunshot wounds, for instance) and most of the surgery is CABG or valve replacement, mortality is somewhat lower. In Detroit ... well your surgery is going to be one of two kinds: regular or unleaded :-)

I don't know the exact stats, but I think Neurosurgeons have a somewhat lower patient mortality rate than Cardiothoracic surgeons overall with their patients (depends on the place, of course) but bear in mind that the non-fatal complications of Neurosurgery can be equally devastating - haemorrhage into brain or spinal tissue leading to paralysis or devastating haemorrhagic "strokes".

Answer 3

Trauma surgery is its own subspecialty. You'll find dedicated trauma surgeons at level I trauma centers in the US. For lower-level trauma centers and general emergency departments, the emergency physicians are going to be taking care of the bulk of things with surgical backup. They probably have the highest mortality, because a good number of their patients are, for all intents and purposes, dead before they even get to the trauma center. It makes for ugly statistics.

Answer 4

Plastic surgeons have the lowest and trauma surgeons have the highest mortality rates.