Happy Holidays!
Written by Ivo Mitsiev at in "General Surgery".Everyone who sporadically was or regularly is stopping by, I would like to wish Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate these days.
Here is my holiday's gift for you: a very nice surgical story I recently heard.
One of my colleagues told me recently about his father who was a surgeon in the Vietnam War. Back then he (the father) was a youngster and used to work with an elderly surgeon who used to... switched off (!) the lights for 2 minutes before closing the skin. On every case!
The rationale behind this (for us) obviously queer custom was the following.
The postoperative bleedings occur because the vessels start to bleed after the closure of the skin. So, to "trap" them, the old surgeon tried to make them "think" the skin was already closed. After 2 minutes he switched the lights back on and looked for any vessel which might have disclosed itself as a potential troublemaker.
People think about medicine as a science. But there are so many "voodoos" we do.
Being a good surgeon becomes a challenging task if you want to keep up with the recent news in this field and also in the world. Having a "normal" social life is increasingly difficult when you consider the time spent in the OR, taking care of the patients and reading the literature.
This is why I truly appreciate you visiting this blog. Thank you!