Articles
Exclusive Q&A: Surgical Display Systems
July 23, 2010 1:17 pm | Sony Electronics | CommentsAs surgery becomes less invasive, facilities must ensure they have the adequate imaging and surgical display technology for surgeons to perform these procedures. Here, Surgical Products speaks with Anne Bondulich, Marketing Manager for Surgical Products at Sony, who discusses new advances in surgical display systems and what facilities should know when purchasing this technology now and in the future.
Closing The Gap
July 23, 2010 8:02 am | by Amanda McGowan, editor | CommentsIt’s clear among the surgical community that an increasing number of surgeons are embarking on the single port surgery approach. From the cosmetic benefit of virtually hiding the incision scar in the umbilicus to the potential for reduced pain and a quicker recovery, benefits of this new technique are becoming more apparent.
Data And Transparency Is Needed To Reduce Medical Mistakes
July 23, 2010 7:25 am | by John Toussaint, MD, and Roger Gerard, PhD | CommentsAdmitting Error In a lean environment, doctors and nurses must allow mistakes to be visible in order to perform root-cause analysis and fix the process. But showing mistakes hits most medical providers in a vulnerable place—right in the collective fear of lawsuits and a highly conditioned need to be heroic.
A Letter To Patients With Chronic Illness
July 21, 2010 7:13 am | by Dr. Rob | CommentsDear Patients: You have it very hard, much harder than most people understand. Having sat for 16 years listening to the stories, seeing the tiredness in your eyes, hearing you try to describe the indescribable, I have come to understand that I too can’t understand what your lives are like.
Question The Meds
July 20, 2010 7:19 am | by GruntDoc | CommentsIn my practice I try to apply some common sense, adopting a colleagues’ phrase “common things are common”. This is particularly useful in the diagnosis of new problems that have eluded diagnosis, and I apply a lesson learned from a fellow resident (a PharmD before med school) who told me: new problems, ask about new meds.
A Wild Frontier
July 20, 2010 7:13 am | by Amanda McGowan, editor | CommentsHow image and video documentation is proving more valuable — inside the OR and out. July 20, 2010 The transition to HD in the OR has resulted in a need for better archiving solutions. Photo: Sony In today’s surgical environment, the reasons to record images and video are wide and varied.
Brainstorm: Temperature Monitoring
July 19, 2010 7:55 am | Deroyal | CommentsMaintaining adequate surgical patient temperature is imperative to a positive outcome. Here, Craig Fernandes, Director of Acute Care Marketing for DeRoyal discusses the importance of temperature monitoring in both pre- and post- surgical procedure areas. July 19, 2010 Temperature monitoring has become a required standard both pre- and post-procedure from a patient safety and a reimbursement perspective.
Why This Doctor Felt Compelled To Go To Haiti
July 16, 2010 7:26 am | by David Chong, MD | CommentsAs the world watched the greatest athletes gather to compete in Vancouver, I was on a plane to Haiti. Just getting on the plane was quite a feat. After I received an urgent e-mail for volunteer doctors from the University of Miami’s Project Medishare field hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti during an overnight shift at New York’s Presbyterian hospital, I began to send frantic requests for coverage for the week.
Cancer In A Transplant Kidney, Is It The Doctor’s Fault?
July 14, 2010 6:50 am | by Amy Tuteur, MD | CommentsMay you never be an interesting case. That’s a cautionary proverb familiar to medical professionals. While it’s bad to get sick, it’s much worse to get sick with something uncommon or unusual. The more fascinating a case is for doctors, the more difficult it is for patients.
Q&A: Surgical Tables
July 14, 2010 6:44 am | MAQUET Medical Systems USA | CommentsRich Antoine, product manager for surgical tables at MAQUET, discusses with Surgical Products the latest developments in surgical tables, how they’ve evolved to accommodate bariatric patients, and what facilities looking to purchase new tables should know for the future.
When The Doctor Is The Patient, Humanism And Competency Matter
July 13, 2010 7:17 am | by Wendy Sue Swanson, MD | CommentsOver the past few weeks I’ve had ample opportunity to be on the other side. Not like some parents with chronically ill children or those with children who have suffered tragic illness. No, not like that; I am fortunate that hospitals aren’t a part of my family’s everyday (except for work).
Why Technology And The Internet May Not Be Good For Patients
July 12, 2010 8:07 am | by Kent Bottles, MD | CommentsParo the robot baby harp seal was the final straw. I had vowed to myself not to think about or write about “the internet makes you smarter, the internet makes you dumber” argument. Even when some of my favorite authors (Steven B. Johnson, Clay Shirky, Nicholas Carr, and Jonah Lehrer) weighed in, I thought it best not to participate.
Preventing Perioperative Hypothermia
July 9, 2010 8:03 am | by Tom Parafinik, Director of Sales, Enthermics Medical Systems, Inc., www.enthermics.com | Enthermics Medical Systems | CommentsPatients have several strikes against them from the start in the surgical environment. In surgery they are naked, anesthetized, in a cold room and perhaps receiving cold IV and/or irrigation fluids. All of these factors can lead to inadvertent perioperative hypothermia. (Hypothermia defined as a core temperature below 36 degrees C or 96.
Tomorrow’s Surgeons Are Today’s Video Gamers
July 9, 2010 6:52 am | by Martin Young, MBChB, FCS(SA) | CommentsAs a young medical student I remember the arrival of the first video arcade games very clearly: Asteroids, Space Invaders and Pacman. I spent whatever spare cash I had on them, never playing long enough to be any good, or rich enough to get any better. When I bought my first computer in my late-twenties, I relived my excitement with the newest computer games, spending a disproportionate amount of time long into many a night.
