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Tremendous acceleration and changes in our daily
medical practice are occurring. Both as doctors and
ordinary citizens, we are aware of living in a world
more and more inuenced by information technology.
In surgery, this revolution has brought about a dramatic
acceleration of the introduction of new devices,
techniques, and procedures that are changing patients’
treatment and destiny. In the last 30 years, innovation
has developed exponentially, forcing both current
and future generations to deal with new technologies
such as microsurgery or laparoscopy, and informatics.
Meanwhile, the old surgical approach still needs to be
learned and mastered for patients’ safety.
erefore, we decided to o er this book to illustrate
to the practicing surgeon, who has precious little time
to keep up with these rapid changes, what the important
emerging technologies are that could a ect his or
her practice in the next 10–20 years. We approached
this e ort with the expectation that this book will serve
as a useful reference to introduce surgeons of every
generation to the principles of new technologies, and
to familiarize them with those new procedures and devices
that seem to belong to the future but in reality are
being implemented now. Because time and resources
are not in nite for the surgeon, both in everyday life
and in their busy practice, we hope this monograph
will contribute to their ability to select those innovations
that will positively impact on his or her practice.
To that end, we have invited eminent surgeons who
are experts on emerging procedures and signi cant
advances in their respective elds to participate. We
have been fortunate to assemble authors who are acknowledged
authorities in these areas, both in clinical
practice as well as in surgical education. We are grateful
to them for their essential contributions, to bring
together, outline, and illustrate the future trends. We
are especially indebted to Dr. Manzelli for his invaluable
support during the preparation of this work. We
are proud to have the privilege to stand on the shoulders
of these giants. |
