The LIFE TRIAD of emergency general surgery

Emergency General Surgery (EGS) was identified as multidisciplinary surgery performed for traumatic and non-traumatic acute conditions during the same admission in the hospital by general emergency surgeons and other specialists. It is the most diffused surgical discipline in the world. To live and grow strong EGS necessitates three fundamental parts: emergency and elective continuous surgical practice, evidence generation through clinical registries and data accrual, and indications and guidelines production: the LIFE TRIAD.Peer reviewe

Correction to: Two years later: Is the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still having an impact on emergency surgery? An international cross-sectional survey among WSES members

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is still ongoing and a major challenge for health care services worldwide. In the first WSES COVID-19 emergency surgery survey, a strong negative impact on emergency surgery (ES) had been described already early in the pandemic situation. However, the knowledge is limited about current effects of the pandemic on patient flow through emergency rooms, daily routine and decision making in ES as well as their changes over time during the last two pandemic years. This second WSES COVID-19 emergency surgery survey investigates the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on ES during the course of the pandemic. Methods: A web survey had been distributed to medical specialists in ES during a four-week period from January 2022, investigating the impact of the pandemic on patients and septic diseases both requiring ES, structural problems due to the pandemic and time-to-intervention in ES routine. Results: 367 collaborators from 59 countries responded to the survey. The majority indicated that the pandemic still significantly impacts on treatment and outcome of surgical emergency patients (83.1% and 78.5%, respectively). As reasons, the collaborators reported decreased case load in ES (44.7%), but patients presenting with more prolonged and severe diseases, especially concerning perforated appendicitis (62.1%) and diverticulitis (57.5%). Otherwise, approximately 50% of the participants still observe a delay in time-to-intervention in ES compared with the situation before the pandemic. Relevant causes leading to enlarged time-to-intervention in ES during the pandemic are persistent problems with in-hospital logistics, lacks in medical staff as well as operating room and intensive care capacities during the pandemic. This leads not only to the need for triage or transferring of ES patients to other hospitals, reported by 64.0% and 48.8% of the collaborators, respectively, but also to paradigm shifts in treatment modalities to non-operative approaches reported by 67.3% of the participants, especially in uncomplicated appendicitis, cholecystitis and multiple-recurrent diverticulitis. Conclusions: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still significantly impacts on care and outcome of patients in ES. Well-known problems with in-hospital logistics are not sufficiently resolved by now; however, medical staff shortages and reduced capacities have been dramatically aggravated over last two pandemic years

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

A General Overview of Scientific Production in China, Japan and Korea of the Water-Gas Shift (WGS) Process

In today’s economy, one of the most important national indicators of economic growth performance is the country’s ability to produce new technology—and use it responsibly and efficiently—for environmental protection or energy conservation, production and consumption in agreement with international standards. The purpose of this study is to identify the Research and Development (R&D) capability in the area of environmentally friendly technologies in China, Japan and Korea over the last twenty years. As the field is very wide, Water-Gas Shift (WGS) reaction technologies were taken as a case study for the purpose of this article. During 1990–2011 a total of 788 papers in the field of WGS technologies were published by scientists in China, Japan and Korea. China was the top producing country with 394 papers (50%) followed by Japan with 250 papers (32%), and Korea with 144 papers (18%). The growth of the literature in the field was found to be exponential in nature for China. The R&D capabilities were found to correlate directly with the Gross Domestic Expenditures on R&D (GERD), Researchers in Full-time equivalents (FTE), and other economic parameters

Analysis of Scholarly Communication Activities in Buddhism and Buddhist Studies

There is little knowledge regarding the exchange of academic information on religious contexts. The objective of this informational study was to perform an overall analysis of all Buddhism-related communications collected in the Web of Science (WoS) from 1993 to 2011. The studied informational parameters include the growth in number of the scholarly communications, as well as the language-, document-, subject category-, source-, country-, and organization-wise distribution of the communications. A total of 5407 scholarly communications in this field of study were published in the selected time range. The most preferred WoS subject category was Asian Studies with 1773 communications (22.81%), followed by Religion with 1425 communications (18.33%) and Philosophy with 680 communications (8.75%). The journal with the highest mean number of citations is Numen: International Review for the History of Religions—with 2.09 citations in average per communication. The United States was the top productive country with 2159 communications (50%), where Harvard University topped the list of organization with 85 communications (12%)

Analysis of Scholarly Communication Activities in Buddhism and Buddhist Studies

There is little knowledge regarding the exchange of academic information on religious contexts. The objective of this informational study was to perform an overall analysis of all Buddhism-related communications collected in the Web of Science (WoS) from 1993 to 2011. The studied informational parameters include the growth in number of the scholarly communications, as well as the language-, document-, subject category-, source-, country-, and organization-wise distribution of the communications. A total of 5407 scholarly communications in this field of study were published in the selected time range. The most preferred WoS subject category was Asian Studies with 1773 communications (22.81%), followed by Religion with 1425 communications (18.33%) and Philosophy with 680 communications (8.75%). The journal with the highest mean number of citations is Numen: International Review for the History of Religions—with 2.09 citations in average per communication. The United States was the top productive country with 2159 communications (50%), where Harvard University topped the list of organization with 85 communications (12%)

An Overview on the South Korean Scientific Production in the Field of Chemistry (1993–2012)

The present review seeks to take stock of the South Korean publication activity on the field of chemistry by analyzing systematically all chemistry-related scholarly communications collected in the Web of Science (WOS) database published by at least one Korean author or Korean institute- or university-affiliated author from 1993 to 2012. The studied parameters included the growth in number of the communications, as well as the language-, document-, category-, source-, organization-, and collaboration-wise distribution of the South Korean communications. A total of 5660 communications on chemistry were found to be published by South Korean researchers during the aforementioned period of time, and South Korea was the 15th country (1.77%) in the world in terms of informational communication activity in chemistry