Disclaimer

Who this site is for

CALOT (Cholecystectomy Anatomy, Learning & Operative Technique) is an educational website about laparoscopic cholecystectomy, written by Dr Prasad Bhukebag for surgical residents preparing for examinations and for practising surgeons who want a structured, evidence-linked review of the operation.

Not medical advice

The pages give general educational information. They are not instructions for the care of any individual patient. What is right for a patient depends on that patient, your findings, your experience, your team and your hospital, and the decision always rests with the treating surgeon.

Doses, thresholds and quoted rates come from the cited sources at the time of writing. Check them against the product information, your formulary and your local policy before you use them. In the theatre, with unclear anatomy or a suspected injury, stop and call for help first.

Clinical judgement, supervision and local protocols

Use this site alongside, never instead of, your training programme, your supervisors, your hospital’s protocols and your national guidelines. Where a page and your local protocol differ, follow your protocol. Techniques described here need appropriate training, equipment and privileges; reading about a technique is not training in it.

The evidence changes

Each teaching page shows the date its sources were last reviewed and names its most recent source. The evidence labels show the type of source a point rests on, not how certain it is, and known limits in checking are stated on the page. Guidelines are revised and trials are published all the time, so a page may be out of date before its next review. Before you rely on a point, read the source yourself. Values are given in conventional units (for example mg/dL); convert if you work in SI units.

Pictures: what is real and what is drawn

Every figure carries a type label. Published figure and Published photograph are reproduced from the cited work under its licence. Anatomical illustration and Clinical flowchart are drawings made for this site. AI teaching illustration means a picture made with artificial-intelligence tools to show a concept: it is not a photograph, shows no real patient or operation, and can simplify or misrepresent anatomy. Do not use it to judge what a real operative view should look like. No image shows an identifiable patient from the author’s own practice.

Published material, licences and copyright

Published figures are used under Creative Commons licences (CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-NC 4.0 and CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), named and linked in each caption with the attribution the licence requires. Many allow non-commercial use only; CALOT carries no advertising and sells nothing. If you reuse a figure, follow its own licence. Rights holders who believe a figure is used wrongly can email the author and it will be reviewed promptly.

The text, original diagrams, worked cases and questions are © Dr Prasad Bhukebag, 2026. You may read, print and share pages for study and teaching with attribution and a link. Please ask before reproducing substantial parts or using them commercially. Fonts are used under the SIL Open Font Licence (see Credits and licences).

Medicolegal content and the Indian context

The consent, communication and medicolegal pages summarise court decisions, regulations and standards (such as Bolam, Montgomery and the GMC in the United Kingdom, and Samira Kohli, the 2002 ethics regulations and NABH standards in India) for teaching. They are not legal advice. Law and professional rules differ between places and change over time. For a real complaint, claim or consent question, consult your hospital’s legal team, your indemnity provider or a lawyer in your jurisdiction.

No warranty and limitation of liability

This site is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, currency, fitness for a purpose or uninterrupted availability. To the fullest extent permitted by law, the author accepts no liability for any loss, injury, damage, cost or claim, direct or indirect, arising from the use of this site, reliance on it, inability to use it, or any website it links to. Nothing here excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law.

Errors and corrections

A site of this size will contain errors. If you find one, please email the author with the page, the point and, if you can, the source. Corrections are made as soon as practicable, and the page’s review date is updated.

Privacy

CALOT has no accounts, sets no cookies, runs no analytics, shows no advertising and uses no tracking. The Exam zone saves your answers, bookmarks and mock results in your own browser on your own device; nothing is sent to the author or anyone else, and you can clear it in your browser settings. The site is delivered by Cloudflare, which, like any web host, may process standard connection data such as your IP address to serve and protect the site (see its privacy policy). If you email the author, your message is used only to reply.

Changes to this page

This disclaimer may change when the site or the law changes; the date at the top is the current version. The site is published from India, and this disclaimer is governed by the laws of India.