Ethics Debate: Neighborly Help or Itinerant Surgery?

Filmed at the 2018 STS Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Robert Sade of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston moderates a debate on the ethics of performing surgeries distant from one’s primary center. The scenario for this debate considers a thoracic surgeon at a major medical center who performs surgeries at a distant hospital and leaves postoperative care to a local general surgeon with thoracic surgical experience. Dr Sade is joined by James Allan of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Alberto Ferreres of the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and the University of Washington in the US. Dr Ferreres is also a member of the ethics committee of the American College of Surgeons.