Medicine on the Western Front Practice Test

Speed of operation matters for survival. Harvey Cushing observed that quicker brain operations tend to yield better outcomes because shorter exposure limits blood loss, reduces brain edema and physiological stress, and lowers the risk of complications like herniation. So a quicker operation is associated with higher survival. Longer, drawn-out surgeries increase blood loss and tissue injury, which worsen outcomes, and the speed of the operation does have an effect—faster procedures generally reduce bleeding rather than cause it.