Background

The 2nd Surgical Clinic of Papageorgiou Hospital started its operation in mid-January 2000 and was the first surgical department to operate in this hospital. It originated from the relocation of the Surgical Clinic of the St. Paul's Hospital, Franconia branch, and is a Public Law Clinic.
She was the first to take over the activation of the surgical infrastructure of the hospital, the organisation of the operating theatres and gave the first impetus to the Surgical Department.
Its staffing initially came from medical and nursing staff transferred from other public hospitals and was gradually integrated into the administrative structures of Papageorgiou Hospital.
The vision of all these persons who moved voluntarily was to operate in a modern and decent environment with all the logistical infrastructure that ensures the quality of health care services.

Activities

The B' Surgical Clinic consists of 34 hospital beds of high standards distributed in four-bed, three-bed, double and single rooms with central air conditioning and a private bathroom. The clinic also makes use of beds in the Short Stay Unit, the Intensive Care Unit and the Postoperative Recovery Unit.
Five operating rooms are available to the Clinic weekly in the aseptic operating theatres, two aseptic rooms in the emergency department operating theatres for one-day hospitalisation cases and one septic minor surgery room in the regular outpatient clinics.
The Clinic has regular General Surgery outpatient clinics every day from 8:30 am to 11 am and then, until noon on the 14th hour, there are special outpatient clinics distributed on respective days such as esophageal surgery, colorectal surgery, pancreatic surgery, endocrine gland surgery, vascular surgery and laparoscopic surgery.
The clinic also participates in the hospital's General Chaplaincy system and makes use of the infrastructure of the Emergency Department.

Project production and directions

The Second Surgical Clinic deals with the diagnosis and treatment of surgical diseases of the abdomen, the vascular system and the endocrine glands. 
The operations that are performed every year are of all severity and concern both benign and malignant diseases of the above mentioned areas. In vascular surgery, both invasive and interventional reconstructions of vascular diseases are performed. In addition, a large number of operations such as cholecystectomies or adrenalectomies are performed laparoscopically. Another area where there is also a great deal of experience is the surgical support of renal patients who are in a haemodialysis unit and require access of all types. 
During its seven-year history, this clinic has performed approximately 10,000 surgical procedures in all the above-mentioned areas and has treated approximately 13,000 patients. 
More than 30,000 patients were seen in regular outpatient clinics and more than 15,000 thousand patients were treated in the emergency department. Finally, the average annual occupancy was about 90% over these years and the average stay of patients in the clinic did not exceed 6 days.

Educational work

The 2nd Surgical Clinic, as one of the oldest established clinics of the NHS, has the right to grant a full specialty in General Surgery. Thus it has five resident positions who are trained in the full range of specialty requirements and our ambition is that upon completion of their statutory training they will be able to function independently as surgeons.
Within this framework, their training is supported by regular weekly courses which they prepare themselves as well as a traineeship register.
In addition to these, due to some specific areas that the clinic practices, we occasionally have scientific collaborators who want to gain experience in specific areas such as endocrine gland surgery, blood access surgery in kidney patients, laparoscopic surgery and others.
Our clinic fulfils the requirements for the granting of the European European Endocrine Surgery Specialist Title and is listed on the UEMS website.
For the period 2006-2007 our Clinic took over the responsibility of organizing the postgraduate courses of the Surgical Society of Northern Greece.