ABSTRACT
The art of surgery recognizes nine varieties of disease aetiology: surroundings and environmental issues of patients; unknown and idiopathic conditions; neoplasia and cancer; diseases of toxins, metabolites and pharmacological drugs; sepsis, infections and dysfunctions of immunity; vascular and haematological diseases; disorders as a result from trauma and wounds; diseases of age and degeneration; and diseases of associations, relationships and networks of society. These can be summarized by a ‘surgical sieve’ for assessing patients. Doctors are still characterized by their individual and traditional specialties when managing patients. Surgical specialties include otolaryngology, cardiothoracic, vascular, breast, urology, plastics and reconstructive, coloproctology, hepatobiliary, upper gastrointestinal, paediatric, orthopaedics and trauma, neurosurgery, maxillofacial, ophthalmology and obstetrics and gynaecological surgery. These traditional boundaries are changeable and surgeons are sometimes characterized according to system specialities, such as pelvic floor or peripheral limb specialists.
