Surgical Mortality and Race as a Risk Factor: A Compass, Not a Destination

Remarkably, few national estimates of inpatient pediatric surgical mortality have been published.1 Pediatric inpatient mortality has been reported mostly for cardiovascular and neurosurgical procedures.2,3 In this issue of Pediatrics , Akbilgic et al4 broaden and extend this literature by examining 30-day postoperative mortality for more than 260 000 surgical procedures performed on children from 2012 to 2015. By using a novel approach, network...