If you are one of those lucky ones, who have never had to be operated on; then count your blessings. The very name of surgery can make a grown man shiver with fear; simply because we know that the process is painful and extremely scary. But surgery is a medical specialty that deals with the use of instruments and human intervention to treat patients of disease. Surgeons train for several years to be allowed to work on the intricate organization of the human body. The main reason for this is because books can teach you only so much. Surgeons become better and better as they work on niche areas of the human body and that is the reason why there are special surgeons assigned to work on special parts of the body.

Surgeons use surgery as an advanced medical tool to treat diseased tissues. The process is called as surgery when human tissues are cut into or a part of the human body is removed or previously open wounds are treated by medical intervention. There are several procedures which also involve the same treatments processes but are not called as surgery. For example, angioplasty or endoscopy also involve the use of an operation theatre, sterile environment, surgeons, surgical instruments and suturing but they are not considered as surgeries as they are carried out from the outside of the body. Let us check out some common methods of surgery.

 Elective surgery is done to correct non-life threatening conditions. These surgeries are done at the patient’s request.

 Emergency surgery is not elective. You cannot choose to do emergency surgery. Emergency surgery is done when there is no other alternative and there is a severe danger to the patient’s life and limb.

 Exploratory surgery is done when the doctor carries out surgery to confirm his diagnosis. If the disease is small then the doctor usually removes the diseased part in the same surgery and then this is also called treatment surgery.

 Therapeutic surgery is carried out to treat a diagnosed condition.

 Amputation surgery is carried out when a diseased part has to be cut off the human body.

 Replantation is the process by which a severed body part is reattached to the human body.

 Reconstruction surgery is done when a destroyed body part is rebuilt again for cosmetic or essential reasons

 Cosmetic surgery is carried out to improve or change the existing physical appearance of a person.

 Excision is the removal of a body part from the human body

 Transplantation surgery is the process by which a human body part is transplanted from a cadaver or a living human person to another human person. Animal parts are also transplanted into humans and this process is also considered as a transplantation surgery.

 Minimally invasive surgery is done when you do not want to damage the patient’s body too much. The surgery is carried out through keyhole procedures that reduces the damage to the human body and decreases the time for recovery.