General Surgery

General Surgery has four units, Colorectal, Upper GI, Breast and Hepatobiliary/transplant. The latter two units have reported their elective surgery activity separately.

The Department is the tertiary referral centre for both emergency and elective General Surgery for the North Metro and much of rural and remote WA.  All units contribute to the General Surgery on-call roster.  The on-call consultant is free of all other commitments and personally reviews all emergency admissions.  Major emergency operations are directly supervised by a consultant.  When required, patients are internally referred to the appropriate sub-specialty unit.  The Department is leading the establishment of the bi-national emergency laparotomy audit.

Weekly meetings are held by each Unit, during which all in-patients are jointly reviewed and the discharge summaries checked for coding.  There is a weekly Departmental meeting and each month one of these meetings is a Mortality and Morbidity meeting. Health Round Table data shows the Department consistently has superior performance when compared against is peers.

The colorectal service works across both SCGH and Osborne Park Hospital. It also provides 24 hours general surgical cover to the King Edward Memorial Hospital.  The consultants have substantial expertise in laparoscopic surgery and with complex pelvic surgery that is often undertaken with other specialties.  There is a weekly cancer MDT and a fortnightly inflammatory bowel MDT.

The Colorectal consultant undertakes all the major retroperitoneal soft tissue tumour and sarcoma surgery for WA under the WA State Sarcoma Service.

The Upper GI unit is one of only two units in WA that undertakes all pancreatic, oesophageal and gastric cancer surgery. There is a weekly cancer MDT. The unit manages all high risk public bariatric patients for WA and is a preferred centre for the management of post-bariatric surgery complications.  It also has a presence at OPH. The Department has works closely with and regularly coordinates with the gastro-enterology and interventional radiology departments.