Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Bloodless surgery, Knifeless surgery...could it also be pointless surgery?

[Click on Post Title for Link to External Article]

I am not too sorry for the moribund title. While we would all love to see surgery performed minimally invasively, or not performed at all, where does the need stop and the want begin?

I am all for NOTES - a seemingly mundane acronym for Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery and other options for patients, as long as the need is justified.

We seem to be slipping into a scary society where we don't even want to reveal the fact that we have been injured and are healing. It gets scarier when physicians perform and justify difficult operations for that.

As an engineer, I cannot stop to marvel at innovative surgical techniques and medical devices. I had a major surgery performed on myself. My surgeon worked really hard on an iliac crest bone transplant surgery to save one of my arms. I have a great respect for that man. I start losing respect for people who support high risk procedures for purely cosmetic reasons.

But, it looks like we will be seeing more and more of these...


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