Surgery, the Ultimate Placebo: A Surgeon Cuts Through the Evidence - Softcover

Ian Harris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1742234577 ISBN 13: 9781742234571

Publisher: UNSW Press, 2016

Synopsis

A senior surgeon suggests that many commonly performed operations are not necessary and that any benefits they offer are a placebo.

For many complaints and conditions the benefits from surgery are lower, and the risks higher, than you or your surgeon think. In this book you will see how commonly performed operations can be found to be useless or even harmful when properly evaluated.

Of course no surgeon is recommending invasive surgery in bad faith, but Ian Harris argues that the evidence for the success for many common operations, including knee arthroscopies, back fusion or cardiac stenting, become current accepted practice without full examination of the evidence. The placebo effect may be real, but is it worth the recovery time, expense and discomfort?

About this title

About the Author:

Professor Ian Harris AM is a senior orthopaedic surgeon who works at Liverpool, St George, St George Private and Sutherland Hospitals in Sydney. His academic affiliation is with UNSW, South Western Sydney Clinical School at Liverpool Hospital, in Sydney, Austrailia. He has a PhD from the University of Sydney on surgical outcomes. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals.

About this edition

• Publisher: UNSW Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1742234577
• ISBN 13: 9781742234571
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224