Surgical Mortality Conference

THE MONTHLY Surgical Mortality Conference at the Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center is an established feature of the surgical program. It serves as a forum for the review of deaths on the Surgical Division during the previous month, for the purpose of critically evaluating each case with a view toward alternative methods in management. Fifteen years of experience with the conference have seen this grow into one of the most widely attended sessions in the hospital, crossing divisional lines.

This is a 650-bed institution, in which approximately 60% of the beds are in rooms which are private or semiprivate and no rooms are larger than four bed units. Somewhat over 6,000 operations are performed each year. The major cases outnumber the minor ones in a ratio of almost 2:1, with increasing emphasis annually on more complex procedures and a larger population of aged persons. About 225 beds are flexibly allocated