Drug points: Benign intracranial hypertension secondary to nasal fluticasone propionate.

There was no general consensus among the orthopaedic surgeons we surveyed about how to cope with intraoperative death. The nature of the specialty is reflected in the division between deaths during elective surgery and those relating to trauma. We were not surprised to find that all but one of the surgeons continued to operate and that the prevailing attitude was one of “it’s part of the job.” A recent study considering stress levels in various medical specialties showed that stress levels are actually lowest in surgeons. We found no references specifically addressing surgeons’ attitudes to intraoperative death, but our findings are not surprising as it has been suggested that surgeons are able to cope with situations that might be thought of as stressful to others. Because of the size of the study, we cannot draw conclusions about the difference in attitudes towards counselling between surgeons experiencing the death of a patient during elective surgery or an unexpected traumatic intraoperative death, and those experiencing an expected traumatic intraoperative death. We also acknowledge that we do not know whether counselling services were available nor whether the surgeons were aware of such services if they were available.