Abdominal Crises 1

Abstract

Despite the mechanical contrivances which clutter our modern world solutions to the crises which constantly beset us in every sphere still depend upon the wisdom of individuals. This is nowhere more true than in the management of abdominal crises which at some stage falls to the lot of every medical man. If disaster is to be averted, a correct diagnosis has to be made and a correct line of action determined within a space of time so short that the opportunity to call upon other opinions or to invoke the corroborative aid of laboratory tests may be severely curtailed. For the vast majority of doctors who are not practising surgeons the overriding responsibility is to decide whether an abdominal crisis is such that operative treatment may be needed. If the medical student, nurtured in the hospital environment gains the impression that this decision is one of no great difficulty he is forgetting that the wheat has already been separated from the chaff before the patient ever reaches hospital. It is a tribute to the general practitioners that so few patients are needlessly referred to hospital and that even fewer are referred with serious complications already established.