Categories of Evidence and Methods in Surgical Decision-Making.

Surgical decision-making is a continuum of judgments that take place during the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods. The fundamental, and most challenging, step is determining whether a patient will benefit from an intervention given the dynamic interplay of diagnostic, temporal, environmental, patient-centric, and surgeon-centric factors. The myriad combinations of these considerations generate a wide spectrum of reasonable therapeutic approaches within the standards of care.