The volume of surgery had grown so swiftly that, without anyone’s quite realizing, it has come to exceed global totals for childbirth—only with a death rate ten to one hundred times higher. Although most of the time a given procedure goes just fine, often it doesn’t: estimates of complication rates for hospital surgery range from 3 to 17 percent. While incisions have gotten smaller and recoveries have gotten quicker, the risks remain serious. Worldwide, at least seven million people a year are left disabled and at least one million dead—a level of harm that approaches that of malaria,
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