General surgery specialists deal with a wide range of conditions within the abdomen, breast, neck, skin and, in many hospitals, vascular (blood vessel) system.
While the name would suggest that the focus of general surgery is to perform operations, often this is not the case. Many patients are referred to surgeons with conditions that do not need surgical procedures, but merely require counselling or medical treatment.
Laparoscopic surgery, also called minimally invasive surgery (MIS), bandaid surgery, or keyhole surgery, is a modern surgical technique in which operations in the abdomen are performed through small incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm) as opposed to the larger incisions needed in laparotomy.
Keyhole surgery makes use of images displayed on TV monitors to magnify the surgical elements.
Laparoscopic surgery includes operations within the abdominal or pelvic cavities, whereas keyhole surgery performed on the thoracic or chest cavity is called thoracoscopic surgery. Laparoscopic and thoracoscopic surgery belong to the broader field of endoscopy.
There are a number of advantages to the patient with laparoscopic surgery versus an open procedure.
These include reduced pain due to smaller incisions and hemorrhaging, and shorter recovery time.