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John J. White, MD, CM

Arch Surg. 2008;143(11):1040.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The phrase "carried out with the precision of a surgeon" is often used as an attribute in situations where care, knowledge, and judgment are vital, as well as technical capability. Precision is one of the attributes that distinguishes a surgeon both in and outside the operating room. Concise, correct, and appropriate language especially underscores this surgical quality; conversely, sloppy and unclear language denigrates.

Looming to epidemic proportions is the spurious use of the word "surgery" to indicate that fraction of surgical care involving an operation.^1-2 Claude Welch, MD, summarized,

Surgery is a science, an art, a type of practice and a profession with many distinct attributes. To call any one of them surgery is to diminish the value of the whole. Do not confuse the procedure, an operation or its site, the operating room, with a revered science.^3(p463)

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