Fascinating program on at 9pm. Showed surgeon opening up the chest cavity and draining all the blood from a patient's body, before opening the main artery and removing pieces of plaque from the left hand lung.
I always thought that plaque was like a sludge that clogs every thing up, but this stuff looked like little red worms and was being hooked out by something like a crochet needle.
After 17 minutes the artery was closed up, the body refilled with blood and checked over. As all was OK, the procedure was then repeated on the right lung. Fascinating to watch, but they didn't discuss what causes plaque in the first place.
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Although I watched this I was not fully focused on it because of the environment I am in. I may wrong but I thought the surgeon was removing blood clots not plaque.
I just loved his comment - "It fills me with wonder when I think what we've done to her. "
It's amazing how far we've come - once upon a time you'd have leeches stuck to you and given some mercury, and of course at the start of the 1900s heath failure patients were given Pentobarbital (that's the drug they use on death row) to keep patients quiet,
Fascinating to watch and just amazed by how calm they remain when things aren't going to plan.
That papworth surgeon was an absolute genius, I’m conflicted ethically with the second case though, I’m not sure whether surgery was in his best interest considering the outcome.
I also thought was it worth it, then thought if they had managed to give him a couple more years through chemotherapy, being able to walk would maybe have helped him to have another couple of years on top of that.
I thought the Surgeons comment on Bravery very good. It's not the Surgeons being Brave it's the Patients.
I do learn a lot from these programs.
I know it took ages to get me warmed up after bypass surgery I was wrapped in an aluminium blanket and kept on a ventilator until my temperature came back to normal now I have an understanding of why !!
In my opinion we have some of the very best in the World in Medicine and Surgery it's just getting in to see them that's difficult !!!
Yes I think it’s difficult to assess really because we never really heard the back story leading up to the surgery. For example; did the patient know he only had a short time to live and wanted the surgery regardless, with the aim of maximising his mobility during this palliative period. Or contrastling, did the surgery accelerate the cancer growth exponentially.
I have been watching this series and am amazed at what they can do these days. The hip op reminded me of the Supervet series, where Noel makes individual plates etc to perfectly fit the animal he’s operating on.
There was a similar series a couple of years ago which showed an AVR op. Thankfully I didn’t watch it until after my op, but made me thankful for the skill of the surgeon.
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