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Elective surgery is surgery that is not urgently required due to an emergency. Elective surgery may be performed for medical purposes, such as cataract surgery, or for other work such as breast implants. These are procedures that the person requiring them decides to undertake, and which may be helpful, but are not necessarily essential.

However, the term is not without definition problems. Some countries or health systems for example consider hip replacements as elective surgery, because a bad hip is not life-threatening, even though it may effectively cripple the patient.

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