Auditing one’s work is very important for an individual surgeon. It gives him a record of ones achievements, success as well as failures. The process of undertaking audit improves one’s attitude to work and brings to the whole team a sense of understanding and purpose in their duties. It brings science to what is in reality a practice of an art.
The audit of
- Structure
- Process
- Outcome
are all necessary, but the most valuable to the surgeon is that of Outcome. To be valuable it must be continuous, fairly comprehensive and most importantly, honest.
The conduction of audit is personal and private. It must not compromise the individual freedom and right to privacy of the patients as well as the surgeon. But there are some things that need to be made public as well.
The individual audit of a surgeon must be discussed with colleagues in audit meetings at fairly regular intervals. The outcomes must be compared with those of colleagues in the same institution as well as those of the country. They have then to be compared with the rest of the world.
How best to do this is to be discussed. The use of digital media is generally accepted as the best way to collect and distribute data. What devices, software are we to use and how?
