Surgery

Surgery (from the Greek and Latin words meaning "hand work") is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, to help improve bodily function or appearance, or sometimes for some other reason.

An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical procedure, operation, or simply surgery. In this context, the verb operating means performing surgery. The adjective surgical means pertaining to surgery; e.g. surgical instruments or surgical nurse.

The patient or subject on which the surgery is performed can be a person or an animal. A surgeon is a person who performs operations on patients.

Persons described as surgeons are commonly medical practitioners, but the term is also applied to podiatrists, dentists and veterinarians.

Surgery can last from minutes to hours, but is typically not an ongoing or periodic type of treatment. The term surgery can also refer to the place where surgery is performed, or simply the office of a physician, dentist, or veterinarian.

Definitions of surgery

Surgery is a medical technology consisting of a physical intervention on tissues. As a general rule, a procedure is considered surgical when it involves cutting of a patient's tissues or closure of a previously sustained wound.

Other procedures that do not necessarily fall under this rubric, such as angioplasty or endoscopy, may be considered surgery if they involve "common" surgical procedure or settings, such as use of a sterile environment, anesthesia, antiseptic conditions, typical surgical instruments, and suturing or stapling.

All forms of surgery are considered invasive procedures; so-called "noninvasive surgery" usually refers to an excision that does not penetrate the structure being excised (e.g. laser ablation of the cornea) or to a radiosurgical procedure (e.g. irradiation of a tumor).