Systematic review of the impact of patient death on surgeons

The British Journal of Surgery
G-R JoliatE Uldry

Abstract

The death of a patient is experienced at some time by most surgeons. The aim of this review was to use existing literature to establish how surgeons have dealt with the death of patients. A systematic review of the medical literature was performed. MEDLINE/PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, Embase, and Google Scholar were searched for qualitative and quantitative studies on surgeon reactions when facing death or a dying patient. This systematic review was performed following the recommendations of the Cochrane collaboration and reported following the PRISMA guidelines. Individual and interview-based opinions were summarized and synthesized. An initial search found 652 articles. After exclusion of articles that did not satisfy the inclusion criteria, 20 articles remained and seven were included. Two of these articles were personal opinion of the author and five were interviews or surveys. The main findings were that facing death routinely induces a strong psychological burden and that surgeons are more at risk than the general population to develop psychological morbidity. Although it is a frequent and emotional subject in the surgical world, the impact of patient death on surgeons is not abundantly studied in the literature. Dealing...Continue Reading

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Citations

Nov 21, 2019·The British Journal of Surgery·G Pellino
Oct 3, 2019·The British Journal of Surgery·C Chamberlain, J M Blazeby
Dec 24, 2019·The British Journal of Surgery·G-R JoliatE Uldry
Dec 24, 2019·The British Journal of Surgery·G Pellino, I M Pellino
Feb 23, 2020·The British Journal of Surgery·F M BoyleJ B North
Oct 3, 2019·The British Journal of Surgery·R C Grossman
Nov 21, 2020·Colorectal Disease : the Official Journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland·Gianluca PellinoFrancesco Pata
Jul 20, 2021·Annals of Medicine and Surgery·Manjunath Siddaiah-SubramanyaCatherine Haigh

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