Inside the Mysterious World of Surgery Roughly 50 million surgeries take place in the United States each year, but the world of surgery remains a mystery to most. Stanford Medicinetakes us inside the rapidly changing operating room. “When I was a medical student, I remember a senior surgeon saying, ‘Big hole, big surgeon,'” recalls Tom Krummel, chair of the department of surgery. “That, of course, has changed.” » More from Stanford Medicine