"Operative Strategy" is the advance plan that the surgeon develops to anticipate and avoid technical pitfalls and potential danger points of an operation. The goal is to make each surgical procedure safe and without complications. Completely revised and now under the editorship of Carol E.H. Scott-Conner, M.D., Chassin's Operative Strategies in General Surgery: An Expositive Atlas, Third Edition provides a clear exposition of all basic procedures including surgery of the digestive tract, breast, abdominal wall, selected head and neck, and endocrine system. Surgery is currently in a state of transition, and many procedures are being performed by minimally-invasive means. While some might argue that "old" operations should be discarded, no operations have been deleted from the text. These operations are still needed, and a surgeon may be called upon to perform an operation that has become rare. That is when this "legacy" material, unique to Chassin's, will be used.