"What is more important? Gain a clear understanding of the context in which our general surgery team works. A highly differentiated hospital context, with a team that covers all areas of general surgery. A university hospital context, with an intrinsic connection to the Faculty of Medicine of the Portuguese Catholic University and interns undergoing postgraduate training in this specialty. A context of clinical organization by areas of clinical intervention and by pathology, in which general surgeons always work in a multidisciplinary team”. At Hospital da Luz Lisboa (HLL), as Rui Maio , Clinical Director and Director of the Surgery Department, explains, general surgery is not just ‘another’ hospital clinical specialty. “The focus is on the patient and the best outcomes we should achieve from the perspective of those we care for. And this means that, when we talk about this specialty – or any of the others that make up our hospital -, we are offering a comprehensive, integrated and multidisciplinary response, which responds to the patient's entire journey. And this is, of course, the most relevant context, which must be considered when our colleagues outside Hospital da Luz consider the referral of their patients.” General surgery is dedicated to the diagnosis and surgical treatment, when applicable, of diseases of the digestive system, endocrine diseases (thyroid and adrenal glands), breast pathology and abdominal wall hernias. The intervention areas of General Surgery include, for example, oncological diseases of the digestive tract, liver, pancreas, breast, thyroid and adrenal gland; obesity (obesity or bariatric surgery); diseases of the stomach, intestines and rectum and anus; liver and gallbladder diseases; and abdominal wall hernias. With an experienced and dedicated team of around two dozen specialists and three specialty interns, the general surgery at Hospital da Luz Lisboa performs almost a hundred surgeries per week, including scheduled inpatient procedures, outpatient surgeries and emergency surgeries, where the team is present with 2 surgeons, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. In addition to this surgical activity and the approximately three hundred weekly specialty consultations, the general surgery team at Hospital da Luz Lisboa is present at all multidisciplinary diagnostic and therapeutic decision meetings, especially for oncological pathologies, giving these specialists the ability intervention in highly complex and differentiating surgeries. In fact, whether through scheduled, multidisciplinary consultations or through the emergency service, HLL's team of general surgeons deals daily with all types of pathologies that require surgical intervention, from the simplest - such as abdominal wall hernias or appendicitis - even the most complex, usually related to oncological diseases. “In our capacity to intervene in all degrees of complexity of general surgery, it is essential to highlight that we have the support of Imaging at Hospital da Luz Lisboa, probably one of the services with the best and most modern equipment in our country and dedicated radiologists. and also organized by pathology”, highlights Rui Maio . Finally, points out the clinical director of HLL, “a hospital must also be a place for training and research. And the quality of its teams is also fulfilled in the mission of teaching and learning, discovering and innovating. This is the DNA of what we do, daily, in general surgery at Hospital da Luz Lisboa”.
