Variations in medical attitudes to postoperative recovery period
BMJ 1995; 311 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7000.296 (Published 29 July 1995) Cite this as: BMJ 1995;311:296
- A W Majeed, lecturera,
- S Brown, senior house officera,
- N Williams, medical studenta,
- D R Hannay, professorb,
- A G Johnson, professora
- aDepartment of Surgery, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2JF,
- bDepartment of General Practice, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2JF
- Correspondence to: Mr Majeed.
- Accepted 13 April 1995
Advice currently given to patients by both surgeons and general practitioners on return to work after commonly performed surgical operations may be empirical and seems to depend more on popular belief than hard evidence.1 Although day case and short stay surgery have allowed considerable savings for hospitals, early discharge from hospital may not necessarily be translated into a reduced overall convalescence time. The responsibility for this may partly lie with doctors on whose advice and certification the patient remains off work.2
We conducted a survey to establish current opinions among surgeons and general practitioners about the time a patient should remain off work after uncomplicated common elective procedures, with the aim of establishing an index against which future improvements may be studied.
Subjects, methods, and results
We selected 100 consultant general surgeons in the Trent health region …