A graduate in medicine from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, Dr. Chua Tee Lian is a family physician with more than 30 years of experience. Having previously worked with Frankel Clinic and Liang Clinic, Dr. Chua Tee Lian currently serves as clinic manager and director of the C and K Family Clinic. In addition, he provides services such as minor surgical procedures.
Surgical procedures are used to remove diseased tissue from a person’s body or repair damaged tissues that could affect a person’s overall health. They fall into two main categories, minor and major.
Minor surgery is a minimally invasive operation that modifies connective tissues, skin, or mucus membranes. In most cases, surgeons make small incisions that allow surgical tools and cameras to be inserted into the body; they may use local anesthesia to reduce discomfort but do not need to render the patient unconscious. Examples of minor surgeries include mole removal, laparoscopies, breast biopsies, and cataract surgeries. These cause relatively little damage to the tissues; as such, infection risks are low, and the recovery time is short.
On the other hand, major surgery involves opening the body through a large incision, giving the surgeon access to an organ or region in which the procedure is to be performed. Examples of major surgeries include organ replacement, complete hysterectomies, heart surgeries, and caesarian sections. Since the aim of a major surgery is to make substantial anatomical alterations to the patient’s body, the process is much more invasive and time consuming, often requiring hours of work and significant damage to surrounding tissue. Such procedures cause significant bodily trauma so the surgical wounds need time to heal and follow-up treatment to prevent infections.
