A special hat filled with six cups’ worth of ground coffee may make it easier for surgeons to succeed at some kinds of nose and throat surgery. This study presents the news: “Coffee: the key to safer image-guided surgery—a granular jamming cap for non-invasive, rigid fixation of fiducial markers to the patient,” Patrick S. Wellborn […]
Tag: surgery
Textilomas, Gossypibomas, Gauzomas, or Muslinomas are Not Tumors
Woven fabrics occasionally turn up inside human bodies, where they can be mistaken for tumors. This study looks for and at some of them, and gives them colorful names: “Textiloma (Gossypiboma) Mimicking Recurrent Intracranial Tumor,” Teresa Ribalta, Ian E. McCutcheon, Antonio G. Neto, Deepali Gupta, A. J. Kumar, David A. Biddle, Lauren A. Langford, Janet […]
Report of the scientific investigation: Can farts be lit on fire by a laser?
There was indeed a scientific investigation after the (widely reported) fire that ignited during a patient’s cervical conization procedure at the University of Tokyo Hospital, causing “a wide range of burns [to the] thighs [and] rear” to the patient. That scientific report is lavishly illustrated with photographs. To determine whether the accident could have been caused by an […]
The Effect of Music on the Efficiency of Surgical Closures
“Time” as they say “is money.” Especially relevant perhaps, in a plastic surgery operating theatre, in which running costs can reach $66 a minute. And where, for example, “A 10% reduction in operative time per hour equals savings of $396 per hour.” What might help to speed-up surgeons’ performance (without of course compromising accuracy and […]
Surgical pathology and bird-watching – compare and contrast
Chhanda Bewtra, M.D., M.B., B.S. who is Associate Professor of Pathology at Creighton University School of Medicine and Creighton University Medical Center, is also a birdwatcher. “I have been a diagnostic surgical pathologist for almost a quarter of a century. Recently, I took up bird-watching (or birding for short) as a hobby. Right away I […]
Cock-Eyed Optimism: Using a Foreskin to Repair Eyelids
This study documents a case of cock-eyed optimism in a German surgical team, and the presumably happy result for the patient: “Cicatricial ectropion in ichthyosis: a novel approach to treatment,” Detlef Uthoff [pictured here], M. Gorney and C. Teichmann, Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, June 1994, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 92-5. The authors, at […]
Brain transplants : the implications [5 of n]
Professor Rebeka Rice of the Philosophy Department at Seattle Pacific University, US, examines the paradoxical implications of brain transplants. [see previous article in this series] The 2012 Winifred E. Weter Faculty Award Lecture for Meritorious Scholarship presents an entity called ‘Bob’ (pictured) Bob is a human being, albeit a hypothetical one. “Perhaps a better way […]
Brain transplants : the implications [4 of n]
Amongst the formidable complexities that would be involved in transplanting someone’s brain, lurks an enigmatic question – if it were yours, would ‘you’ go with your brain? Such questions have been examined by professor Fredrik Svenaeus, of Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden. The professor has a chapter in ‘The Body as Gift, Resource, and Commodity’, ( […]
Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris explains the clockwork saw
Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris savors the clockwork saw, in this brief video: (Thanks to Adam Rutherford for bringing this to our attention.) BONUS: Additional detail, from someone else who saw the saw
“This unholy war against oleaginous applications”, 1898
The 1898 meeting of the American Medical Association was held in Denver, Colorado in early June. One major address was on the topic of “Wet Dressings In Surgery“, delivered by Dr. Thomas Osmond Summers Jr. of St. Louis, son of the theologian and Confederate States almanac editor. Dr. Summers reached such heights of eloquence, in his […]