SurgeXperiences 322
Welcome to this fortnight’s SurgeXperiences, where we feature several blog articles which might be of interest to surgeons, anesthesiologists, scrub nurses, nurses, students, techs, or just about anyone who is fascinated by the surgical discipline!
Believing that I cannot better reflect what the various excellent bloggers already have in their own words, I hereby present some of our regular surg bloggers’ recent posts!
Regular surg bloggers
Reflections in a Head Mirror – Two world collide
“There’s a consult downstairs, Campbell. Go check it out and I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Sure, OK.” I was a third-year medical student fumbling through my first clinical rotations. The resident headed off to whatever he needed to accomplish and I trotted down the back stairwell. I glanced at the consultation slip and found the patient’s room number.
56-year-old man with progressive medical problems. Please evaluate for central line placement.
Aggravated DocSurg – If they could only all be taken to Rampart Hospital
Trauma surgery for me is a whole lotta non-operative care interspersed with occasional surgery for things like a ruptured spleen…
Except in real life, where some patients die of their gunshot wound (GSW). Sometimes, the reasons are obvious — shot through the heart or the head with a fatal brain injury. Sometimes, the reasons are harder to understand —- see a description of irreversible coagulopathy here. As for the rest, we don’t have all of the answers, though not for a lack of searching.
Insurance Coverage Is Associated With Mortality After Gunshot Trauma is a recent retrospective study that is part of that searching.
…..
What do I think? Meh. Several things strike me at the same time.
other things amanzi – significant moments
i hate paediatrics. people who don’t understand the life of surgery may think this means i don’t like children, but in fact the contrast is true. surgery is suffering and heartache. surgery is pain and misery. it is stuff children are not supposed to experience. children are supposed to be caught up in the joys of life…
i have been following the story of the baby that was brutally assaulted recently with more than a little horror….
recently in our beautiful land quite a number of fairly highly positioned politicians have publically encouraged the murder of afrikaaners…
i can’t help drawing parallels…
Anti-quackery surgical oncologist makes an analogy between “sentinel” bleeds and small outbreaks of vaccinable diseases
… a “sentinel” bleed is generally a relatively small, self-limited upper GI bleed. The patient bleeds, then stops. Everything appears to have settled down. Then, usually hours although sometimes days later, the patient suffers a massive exsanguinating hemorrhage from the fistulae. There are other examples of herald bleeds…
The relatively small outbreaks, such as the measles outbreak in San Diego, could be viewed as being similar to sentinel bleeds, relatively small and self-limited. I fear the real outbreak, as well we all should. Thanks to the anti-vaccine movement, it’s a matter of time unless current trends reverse themselves. When I think about this, I become very depressed.
Unbounded Medicine – Uric Acid Nephrolithiasis
Fast facts about the above named condition. Welcome back Dr Jon!
Cut on the Dotted Line – absite as myth
I’ve been thinking: the surgery in-training exam is really like a recitation of legends, orally recounted histories, not too closely related to facts, that define our community.
The test runs through a long series of stories, which are so familiar to surgeons and surgeons-in-training, that we only have to mention a few words of the story, to have the whole thing immediately recognized and understood.
Suture for a Living – Dr Goldwyn’s “Surgeon”
After learning about Dr. Robert Goldwyn’s death, I pulled out his book “The Operative Note: Collected Editorials” to reread (published in August 1992). I’d like to share a few with you over the next weeks/months.
The first is entitled “Surgeon”
this is certainly a new series I look forward to!
Suture for a Living – Knowledge: What Kind and How Much?
Here is a second essay from Dr. Robert Goldwyn’s book “The Operative Note: Collected Editorials” (published in August 1992). Knowledge: What Kind and How Much?
last week, on my private practice day, I counted how often I changed clothes. I went to 2 hospitals (one of them twice) during the day. Including getting out of my pyjamas into my street clothes, and then back into my pyjamas at the end of the day, I changed clothes 9 times.
One of the problems with being the anaesthetist is that often, I don’t know the whole story. Sometimes it is better this way, other times not.
VIVA TIVA: Safety and security
Something very strange happened last night. I had to accompany an intubated & ventilated patient being transferred from our hospital, to an ICU in the capital city about 70 km away.
Other blog articles of interest
This week we also have a peek into the life of a trans-sexual who desires gender reassignment surgery. Jessica describes herself as “a 32 year old natal male who identifies as a woman and desires to have vaginoplasty as part of gender transition”. As you might know, there are not many surgeons who do such surgeries and the handful that do have strict requirements, and hence Jessica has penned a “Surgery Letter”, which is a working draft letter for her cognitive/behavioural psychologist to the potential surgeon. Read it [HERE] and do check out her website to find out more about her journey.
Many surgeons (and for that matter physicians in general) have interests outside of medicine. A New York plastic surgeon, Dr Hank Chieng, has just set a new world record in Donkey Kong. Find out more about his story on how he did it [HERE]. This makes some wonder if there’s a link between surgery and video games. Celeste Biever of New Scientist blog addresses this query [HERE]
Katie a pre-med student from Case Western Reserve University blogs about her semester in the UK. Among many of her experiences which she chronicles in her blog “There’s No Place like London”, one was about the times she spent in the Operating Theatres watching OBGYN and cardiothoracic surgical procedures. Read more [HERE]!
Remote controlled heart surgery a world first! Read more about this groundbreaking feat performed at Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital [HERE].
Joke of the fortnight
A funny reconstructive surgery joke. Check it out [HERE]!
Finis
Meanwhile, should you desire more surgical blog reading, kindly avail yourself to the archives of SurgeXperiences, stored here (Season 2) and here (Season 1), along with the latest schedule of dates and host sites. You can also subscribe via RSS or email to SurgeXperiences over at this link. And of course, you can submit your posts VIA THIS FORM.
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Thanks, Jeffrey!