Series on vascular injuries. Part III: complex injuries and difficult problems
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EDITORIAL
Series on vascular injuries. Part III: complex injuries and difficult problems Surgical strategies for their management J. A. Asensio • D. V. Feliciano • D. D. Trunkey A. Leppaniemi
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Received: 5 November 2013 / Accepted: 8 November 2013 / Published online: 22 November 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
It has been an honor to edit these three volumes of the European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery dedicated to the management of vascular injuries. These three volumes contain manuscripts that deal with some of the most difficult injuries that a trauma surgeon will encounter. ‘‘Let him who wishes to be a surgeon go to war.’’ This aphorism by Hippocrates, pronounced approximately 350 years prior to the birth of Christ, is as relevant now as it was in the past. Although injuries to blood vessels have been well known to trauma surgeons throughout the ages, as they arise in both the military and civilian arenas of warfare, vascular injury management did not begin its long and arduous development until the contemporary wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.World War I, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, as well as the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts provided surgeons
J. A. Asensio New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA J. A. Asensio (&) Department of Surgery, New York Medical College, Division of Trauma Surgery and Acute Care Surgery, Joel A. Halpern Trauma Center, Westchester Medical Center University Hospital, Taylor Pavilion, 100 Woods Road, Suite E-137, Valhalla, NY 10595, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. V. Feliciano Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA D. D. Trunkey University of Oregon, Portland, OR, USA A. Leppaniemi Helsinki University, Helsinki, Finland
with large numbers of casualties, which led to various surgical advances. It is somewhat ironic that all of these conflicts have prompted such great progress in the management of vascular injury. Seminal studies produced by trauma surgeons with both civilian and military experience, who painstakingly collected and analyzed outcome data under the most adverse conditions, have significantly increased our knowledge to the level that currently allows trauma surgeons to save both lives and limbs. To pay homage to all that have contributed would be impossible. However, they have a special place in my heart. Recently, around the world, the word ‘‘hero’’ has been bandied about in a way that, in my personal opinion, diminishes its meaning. Rest assured that all of these surgeons who have advanced the field of vascular injury management are unsung heroes who fulfill my own definition of the term, which is: those who are first in and last out of military and urban arenas of warfare, who lead from the front and—when it appears that all hope is lost—serve as the pillar against which all adversity must break; who are willing to sacrifice to protect their own; who give all of the credit to their team when things go well and take all of the blame when they fail; who share their knowledge from the heart and give
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