Increasing Urgency
When a condition is worsening, but has not yet reached the point of a true emergency, surgeons speak of semi-elective surgery: the peccant part must be dealt with, but a delay is not expected to affect the outcome.
In a patient with multiple medical conditions, problems classified as needing semi-elective surgeries may be postponed until emergent conditions have been addressed and the patient is medically stable. For example, whenever possible, pregnant women typically postpone all elective and semi-elective procedures until after giving birth. In some situations, an urgently needed surgery will be postponed briefly to permit even more urgent conditions to be addressed. In other situations, emergency surgery may be performed at the same time as life-saving resuscitation efforts.
Semi-elective procedures are typically scheduled within a time frame deemed appropriate for the patient's condition and disease. Removal of a malignancy, for example, is usually scheduled as semi-elective surgery, to be performed within a set number of days or weeks. Urgent surgery is typically performed with 48 hours of diagnosis. Emergency surgery is performed as soon as a surgeon is available.
Many surgeries can be performed as either elective or emergency surgeries, depending on the patient's needs. A sudden worsening of gallbladder disease may require immediate removal of the gallbladder by emergency surgery, but this surgery is more commonly scheduled in advance.
Read more about this topic: Elective Surgery
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