Follow Up of Surgical Patients and Legal Medicine

Introduction

Historically, patients who had undergone a surgical procedure were followed up by the surgeon postoperatively for a variable time. Most surgeons, their patients, and other health-care professionals would describe review by the surgeon, following a surgical procedure, as standard practice. There is a perception that this may reduce the risk of legal medicine claims for negligence, as surgeons do not want to be found deficient by not following up their patients. What is the purpose of this follow-up? Particularly in public hospitals, without setting limits on outpatient clinic numbers, clinics can quickly become overburdened. For most public hospitals, there is a waiting period between the time of referral and the time of being seen in a specialist clinic. As health economics and streamlining of health systems expand, there is ever-increasing pressure toward more effective utilization of resources with attached demands for improved performance. One easy performance measure...