Surgery: art or science
10.3760/cma.j.issn.1673-9752.2019.01.003
- VernacularTitle:外科是一门艺术还是一门科学
- Author:
Yee Wan LAU
1
Author Information
1. 中华人民共和国香港特别行政区新界沙田香港中文大学医学院
- Keywords:
Surgery;
Medicine;
Science;
Art
- From:
Chinese Journal of Digestive Surgery
2019;18(1):16-19
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
There have been a lot of debates on whether medicine is art or science.Some consider medicine as a discipline of science,others consider as a discipline of science and art,while some others consider as application of art on science.Surgery is a specialty in medicine in which clinicians use their hands to heal patients.It is not surprising that whether surgery is art or science is even more controversial.Modern medicine began in the 1880s when the three major problems in surgery were overcome:pain,infection and blood loss.Since then surgery has developed very fast.Modern surgery is established on the basis of science:from the basic knowledge of anatomy,physiology,pathology and diagnostic radiology,modern surgery evolves to treat diseases.There is little doubt that in the ideal world even surgical decision-making should be based on science and evidence-based medicine.Unfortunately,science cannot solve all of problems encountered by surgeons in their clinical practice.With the rapid development of evidencebased medicine in the past few decades,there are still a lot of areas in surgery where there is no good evidence to guide clinical decision-making.Under these situations,clinicians can only rely on their knowledge and experience to make a judgement-the application of art on science to make a medical decision.Moreover,accurate,appropriate and timely clinical judgement is also a combination of art and science.Similarly,the development of surgical skills is based on science.However,the merging of science and art produces application of technique and surgical innovation.Modern surgery is developed based on science.The application of art on science is sometimes required to make clinical judgement,especially intraoperative judgement.Surgical innovation,which combines science and art,helps to improve the standard of surgery.
