title: DoSurgeons Have More Difficulties in the Hospital Care of Non-surgery Patients Than With Surgery Patients?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A variable percentage of patients admitted to surgical departments are not operated on for several reasons. Our goal is to check if surgeons have more problems in caring for non-operated hospitalized patients than operated ones.
  
  
  METHODS
  We included all patients aged ≥ 14 years discharged in 2010 from General Surgery, Gynaecology, Urology, and Otolaryngology. The main variables were the length of stay, mortality, readmissions, and number of consultations/referrals requested to medical services. Secondary variables were age, sex, number of emergency admissions, total number of diagnoses, and the Charlson comorbidity index (ICh).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Between 8.7% and 22.8% of patients admitted to these surgical departments are not operated on. The non-operated patients had a significantly higher stay, mortality, readmissions and consultations/referrals requests than operated ones, with significantly higher age (except Urology), number of diagnoses, emergency admissions and ICh (except Urology).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients admitted to surgical departments and are not operated on have higher mortality, readmissions and consultation/referrals requests than those operated on, which may be due to their greater medical complexity and urgency of admission. This suggests a greater difficulty in their care by surgeons.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España. Electronic address: eduardo.montero@salud.madrid.org.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Montero Ruiz
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.
authors.forename: José María
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Barbero Allende
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Melgar Molero
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.
authors.forename: Ángela
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Rebollar Merino
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: García Sánchez
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.
authors.forename: Joaquín
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: López Álvarez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies
keywords: Atención perioperatoria; Departamento de Cirugía; Inpatients; Internal Medicine; Medicina Interna; Pacientes ingresados; Perioperative care; Referral and consultation; Remisión y consulta; Surgery Department