This (PDF) doesn’t seem such a good idea to me. Yes, it increases transparency, but such figures are never accurate, because risk factors for patients tend to be set differently by different doctors, and (dare I say it) on the particular outcome for a patient. I can’t see any particular good that will come from this information being in the public domain, but there’s a whole lot of bad that could happen, with surgeons being victimised by the tabloid press.

On a completely different level, it’s worrying to note that one of the people who teaches me has a particularly high death rate…