What would happen if your surgeon just left in the middle of surgery?
Say you’re having major surgery, like installing some new ribs, and half way through the surgery, while your chest is wide open, the surgeon just leaves. Like he just decides to go home and leave you there.
Eventually you’ll wake up, right? You’ll wake up with your chest open, probably in a lot of pain.
Would you die? If you manage to stay calm and just lie there patiently, how long could you survive? Besides something like an infection, what would be the things that could kill you in that situation?
Everyone here saying that there would be someone else to stitch you up, I think what OP meant was more of a "everyone in the room vanishes and you're left alone" type of question.
I don't know the full answer, but the surgeon would not be the only doctor in the room. There would at least be an anesthesiologist, and supporting nurses.
I think a more serious and probable question is what would happen if your doctor had a heart attack during surgery. Doesn't take a degree from Hollywood Upstairs Medical School for that to happen!
I would imagine there is a contingency plan for if the surgeon becomes incapacitated, eg has an aneurysm/heart attack, so they’d probably do whatever that is
Probably something like palliative care until an on call surgeon can come in and finish out whatever was going on
Palliative care? That's not what palliative care is.
What is palliative care?
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness, such as cancer or heart failure. Patients in palliative care may receive medical care for their symptoms, or palliative care, along with treatment intended to cure their serious illness. Palliative care is meant to enhance a person's current care by focusing on quality of life for them and their family.
There would be some other doctor in the hospital that would sew you back up, that surgeon would go to jail for a while, you'd be on the news, win massive lawsuit.
You know, there are actually a lot of lousy surgeons out there. Usually not at major hospitals, but at very small, rural, or poor hospitals. These hospitals struggle to attract talent, and these surgeons have usually left better positions in disgrace. It’s a match made in hell.