With the introduction of new post-graduate medical training in the UK, virtually all doctors will be exposed to some form of surgical training prior to specialisation. Many of these doctors will have little exposure to surgical emergencies in medical school. Thus, they may unnecessarily refer to a senior doctor when not needed, or catastrophically neglect a patient needing urgent surgical opinion. Hence, a compact resource is required, so that the essential steps of initial management of all surgical emergencies is outlined in a manner that they can use on a day-to-day basis for clinical management. We anticipate that this book will allow any clinician, without previous surgical knowledge, to be able to make an accurate diagnosis and have a treatment plan for the whole spectrum of surgical emergencies.
