Sometimes we have to look backward to look forward. Since 1990, surgery has witnessed cataclysmic changes. In our Trust, the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed in 1992, and has now become the procedure of choice for most gall bladder disease and many other surgical operations in the western world. With the expansion of laparoscopic surgery, we have encountered a whole new range of complications with an escalation in the demise of general surgery as the result of hyperspecialization. There are many surgical trainees who have scant experience of open surgery and who have, due to European directives, limited time exposure to surgical procedures. In fact, most technical training is now obtained from emergency on call such that a new speciality of emergency surgery is developing. A recent British Medical Journal (BMJ) article recommended a training programme for surgeons wishing to work in remote and rural surgery—not only in the Developing World, but in remote and isolated communities in the United Kingdom! General surgery may largely have gone, but it should not be forgotten. Most countries in the world do not have access to these recent innovations and there is still a case in the developed world for experience in open and general surgery to be incorporated in the formal training programmes of junior surgeons.
Oxford Handbook of Clinical Surgery (4 edn)
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