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🧮 Statistical Fundamentals for Surgeons

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Statistics are integral to modern surgical practice, aiding in understanding research, improving patient outcomes, and supporting evidence-based decisions.

Types of Statistics

  1. Descriptive Statistics:
    • Mean, Median, Mode:
      • Mean: Average value.
      • Median: Middle value when data is ordered.
      • Mode: Most frequent value; useful in bimodal distributions.
    • Spread and Distribution:
      • Standard Deviation (SD): Shows data spread. In a normal distribution, ±1SD contains ~68% of values.
      • Kurtosis: Measures peak sharpness; data can be leptokurtic (sharp) or platykurtic (flat).
      • Skewness: Asymmetry in data distribution; e.g., income data often skews positively.
    • Visualisation:
      • Box-and-whisker plots demonstrate median, interquartile range, and data extremes.
  2. Inferential Statistics:
    • Used to make population-level predictions based on sample data.
    • Key metrics:
      • Confidence Intervals (CI): A 95% CI means the true value lies within this range 95% of the time.
      • p-Values: p<0.05 indicates <5% probability results are due to chance.