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Review Article

Intensivist as a Surgeon: The Role of a Surgeon in Critical Care Medicine

Kyung Sook Hong
The Ewha Medical Journal 2017;40(2):61-65. Published online: April 28, 2017

Division of Critical Care Medicine, Department of Surgery, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Kyung Sook Hong. Department of Surgery and Critical Care Medicine, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, 1071 Anyangcheon-ro, Yangcheongu, Seoul 07985, Korea. Tel: 82-2-2650-2774, Fax: 82-2-2650-5906, hongks@ewha.ac.kr
• Received: January 6, 2017   • Accepted: April 5, 2017

Copyright © 2017. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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  • Critical care medicine is to provide advanced medical care to critically ill-patients threatened by severe diseases. Although critical care is a core area of surgery, surgeons have fewer interests and opportunities for participating in it, and the dedicated intensivists with other specialties have had a deeper involvement. It is difficult to recruit surgical intensivists or trauma surgeons for critical care due to the high labor intensity, high risk of medical accidents and conflicts, and inappropriate remuneration. The most common cause, however, is the lack of opportunities for surgical cases. There is a negative perception among surgeons that surgical intensivists are ‘the surgeons who do not operate.’ That makes the surgeons feel the gap between what they majored and what they practice. Acute care surgery, that is a relatively new, but more specialized surgical area including emergency surgery, trauma and critical care, can be a good alternative. Critically ill-patients who suffered from hemorrhagic shock, septic shock, acute renal injury, and acute respiratory distress syndrome need the intensive and aggressive treatments. Surgeons have been used to these invasive and aggressive procedures. Surgeons who have trained the critical care may be able to acquire the expertise, easily. The intensivists as a surgeon, who fully understands the operations, postoperative courses or complications, or the optimal time of surgery, can provide more efficient and accurate treatments for surgically critically ill-patients than any intensivists with other specialties. It is needed to change the surgeons' negative perceptions themselves with the support of the Korean Society of Surgery.
  • Keywords: Surgeons; Critical care; Critical illness; Intensive care units; Education
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    Citations

    Citations to this article as recorded by  
    • Integrating acute care surgery in South Korea: enhancing trauma and non-trauma emergency care
      Jin Young Lee, Seheon Kim, Jin Bong Ye, Jin Suk Lee, Younghoon Sul
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    • Relationship between the Perceptions of ICU Nurses on the Disclosure of Patient Safety Incidents and Communication Barriers
      In Sun Cho, Su Jung Choi
      Journal of Korean Critical Care Nursing.2024; 17(1): 44.     CrossRef
    • Analysis of Medical Consultation Patterns in Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Units: Changes in the Pattern of Consultation after the Implementation of Intensivist-Directed Care
      Min-Jung Bang, So-Kyung Yoon, Kyoung Won Yoon, Eunmi Gil, Keesang Yoo, Kyoung Jin Choi, Chi-Min Park
      Journal of Acute Care Surgery.2021; 11(3): 102.     CrossRef

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    Intensivist as a Surgeon: The Role of a Surgeon in Critical Care Medicine
    Ewha Med J. 2017;40(2):61-65.   Published online April 28, 2017
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2017.40.2.61
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    Intensivist as a Surgeon: The Role of a Surgeon in Critical Care Medicine
    Ewha Med J. 2017;40(2):61-65.   Published online April 28, 2017
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2017.40.2.61
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    Intensivist as a Surgeon: The Role of a Surgeon in Critical Care Medicine
    Intensivist as a Surgeon: The Role of a Surgeon in Critical Care Medicine
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