Jonothan Earnshaw, Directory of BJS Academy, delivers his talk ‘Future of scientific surgical publication’. A reprise of his presentation at the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI)’s 2024 Annual Meeting.

Olle Ljungqvist, Ulf Gustafsson, Hans D.  de Boer

ERAS so far It is more than 25 years ago that a multimodal approach to recovery after major surgery, called fast track surgery, was first proposed1,2.  Combined with laparoscopic surgery it showed that old and frail patients were fit to leave the hospital in two days after major surgery3. Larger follow up studies reported that this could be achieved with fast track surgery alone. This inspired a group of surgeons from Northern Europe to form the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Study Group in 20014. The members hypothesized that bringing together all potential stress reducing and recovery improving care elements into one program, would enhance recovery after surgery. The first ERAS protocol was published in 20055. But alongside the guideline there was a need to also organize care in a new way to make ERAS fully functioning6 (Table 1). When the guideline was tested a clear relationship was shown with more care elements in the protocol in use and improved outcomes regarding both complications, length of stay and readmissions suggesting that detailed audit would be key7-9.

Short BJS Course – Part 1 of 4 Martyn Evans, Course Lead and Editor, BJS