Emergency General Surgery-A Misnomer?

Abstract

Emergency general surgery (EGS) is defined as the urgent assessment and treatment of nontrauma, general surgical emergencies involving adults. Acute surgical emergencies often represent the most common reason for hospital admission with diagnoses, including bowel obstruction and appendicitis. EGS is a growing surgical subspecialty that includes both operative and nonoperative management of acutely ill patients. We sought to assess the burden of nonoperative care in EGS patients at our academic medical center. This study was conducted by retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from patients entered into the Duke EGS Registry between July 1, 2016 and September 10, 2017. Fifty-six per cent (n = 771) of patients in the Duke EGS Registry (n = 1377) were managed nonoperatively as compared with 44 per cent (n = 606) who were managed operatively. Nonoperative management of disease represents a large subset of EGS and, therefore, needs further investigation to improve processes, outcomes, and standardization of care.