Surgery in Iceland.

Icelandic surgeons provide a wide range of modern surgical services with excellent results. How can a nation of fewer than 300,000 persons accomplish this? The main reasons are a thriving economy, a high standard of living and education, and the training of surgeons. All Icelandic surgeons receive their training overseas, many at university hospitals in the other Nordic countries, particularly Sweden. Others receive training in the United States and Great Britain. Almost 50% of the general and orthopedic surgeons hold PhD degrees from major universities in the Nordic countries. In some other surgical subspecialties, an even greater number possess a PhD degree. This diverse background of training creates a stimulating and international outlook among the surgeons. All types of surgery are performed in Iceland, with the exception of surgery for complicated congenital heart disease and transplantation. Recently a living related renal transplant program was started with promising results.

The European experience with vascular injuries.

The rich and diverse heritage of the management of vascular injuries in the 45 independent European countries prevents the authors from revealing a uniform picture of the European experience, but some trends are clearly emerging. In countries with a low incidence of penetrating trauma and increasing use of interventional vascular procedures, the proportion of iatrogenic vascular trauma exceeds 40% of all vascular injuries, whereas on other parts of the continent, armed conflicts are still a major cause of vascular trauma. National vascular registries, mostly in the Scandinavian countries, produce useful, nationwide data about vascular trauma and its management but suffer still from inadequate data collection. Despite a relatively low incidence of vascular trauma in most European countries, the results are satisfactory, probably in most cases because of active and early management by surgeons on call, whether with vascular training or not, treating all kinds of vascular surgical emergencies. In some countries, attempts at developing a trauma and emergency surgical specialty, including expertise in the management of vascular injuries, are on their way.