In recent years, the commercialization of the American health care industry has challenged medicine across the breadth of its traditional roles and responsibilities. This trend is growing, and the greater emphasis on the commercialization and secularization of medicine has generated in medical professionals a passionate desire to reconnect with the core values, practices, and behaviors that they see as exemplifying the very best of what medicine should be about.
The American College of Surgeons and ACS Surgery: Principles and Practice, its comprehensive clinical reference for practicing general surgeons, support surgeons in their efforts to renew their pledge to the core values of professionalism. Although market-place realities cannot be dismissed, we believe, like you, the practicing surgeon, that the doctor-patient relationship is the foundation on which world-class surgical care is provided. Surgeons have long been committed to working unforgiving hours while frequently squeezing in extra patients, not to mention professional education, family life, and personal interests. Of late, however, the marketplace pressures to scrimp on the time we spend with our patients have increased hugely.
But we do have a choice. Unlike the forces governing the market-place, which are often out of our hands, the decision to practice virtue-based, rather than solely market-based, medicine is our own. Illness and the suffering that accompanies it will remain battles over which we do not have complete domination or control, but the willingness of the physician to display compassion through dedication and caring can give an illness meaning that may otherwise be impossible to secure.
The chapters in ACS Surgery are designed to support your commitment to compassionate patient care by providing the information you need to continually refine your skills and to perform key procedures more efficiently and with better outcomes. Just some of the new features in your 2005 edition of ACS Surgery include a brand-new section on head and neck problems and procedures, as well as a greatly expanded alimentary tract section with, for example, coverage of Crohn disease and the operative management of rectal cancer.
