ABSTRACT
Catheters that are placed for surgery should be removed immediately after in the absence of persistent bladder dysfunction. While rectal surgeons may remain reluctant to embrace early catheter removal due to proximity of their dissection to the bladder, the literature firmly supports early catheter removal even in this patient group. Practices regarding catheter placement and removal are largely driven by institutional protocol and require little clinician input or judgment. The general surgeon most commonly interacts with the gynecologic surgeon when that service causes an iatrogenic injury to a non-gynecologic structure. A systematic review looked at 474,063 gynecologic laparoscopies performed between 1972 and 2014 to identify the incidence of iatrogenic bowel injury. The rate of bowel injury was 1 in 769 cases and varied by procedure: 1 in 3333 for sterilization and 1 in 256 for hysterectomy. The small bowel was the most frequently damaged region, with 166 of 354, followed by colon, rectum, and stomach.
