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Unless you know the jargon, when you heard during the pandemic that hospitals had to cancel elective surgeries, you probably got the impression they were canceling “optional” surgeries

But most of those operations were very necessary (e.g., cancer resection). They are called “elective” because the surgeon can choose the time (cf. emergency surgery), but the impression is that the choice is whether to do the surgery at all

I think this is bad for patient understanding and public communication🤓