An engaging account of the creation of the American College of Surgeons and the dynamic individuals who formed the organization written on the 100th anniversary of its founding. Drs. Nahrwold and Kernahan have devoted four years to researching and writing this work, and the authors vividly capture the complex personalities of the leaders of the American College of Surgeons throughout its first 100 years.
Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider’s The Invention of Surgery is an in-depth biography of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing developments of anesthesia and antiseptic operating rooms to the “implant revolution” of the twentieth century.The Invention of Surgery is history of surgery that explains this dramatic, world-changing progress and highlights the personalities of the discipline's most dynamic historical figures. It links together the lives of the pioneering scientists who first understood what causes disease and how surgery could powerfully intercede in people’s lives, and then shows how the rise of surgery intersected with many of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last century. And as Schneider argues, surgery has not finished transforming; new technologies are constantly reinventing both the practice of surgery and the nature of the objects we are permanently implanting in our bodies. Schneider considers these latest developments, asking “What’s next?” and analyzing how our conception of surgery has changed alongside our evolving ideas of medicine, technology, and our bodies.
Francis Moore entered Harvard Medical School in September of 1935, seven years before penicillin became available. During his remarkable career in surgery, research, and education, Moore has witnessed and contributed to some of the most important biomedical advances of the century, and his students now practice surgery worldwide. In this autobiography, he brings humor and warmth to the story of a lifetime at the forefront of medicine. In this fascinating book Moore describes his work in radioactive isotope research, burn therapy, breast cancer treatment, transplant science, and understanding the process of convalescence. Moore's colleagues have included such medical pioneers as George Thorn, David Hume, Thomas Starzl, John Gibbon, Steven Rosenberg, Harold Urey, and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Murray, and he recounts the setbacks and victories of their work. For example, he writes of the adventure he had with Charles Hufnagel in which 25 dogs, implanted with Hufnagel's experimental heart valves, made their escape into the Connecticut countryside and had to be recovered by dog control officers wielding stethoscopes. Yet Moore recalls with equal clarity the young mother who gave him a silver dollar for delivering her baby, the husband who begged that his ailing wife be allowed to die with dignity, and the desperately sick patients who made themselves available for experimental surgery and treatment. In one of his early operations he relieved "the pain, anguish, and threat to a wonderful small boy" by removing the boy's diseased appendix. He describes this capability as "a miracle and a privilege." The book includes a gripping account of the aftermath of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston in 1942, when Moore learned the horrific details of death by fire. He recounts both his experience with M.A.S.H. units and battalion aid stations in Korea and the sudden request from the U.S. State Department that resulted in his treating King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Moore's life story reflects his serious commitment to human well-being as well as his appreciation for the wonder of human life. Physicians, medical students, and all readers alike will find this book informative and inspirational. Francis Daniels Moore, M.D., is Moseley Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School and Surgeon-in-Chief, Emeritus, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston.
A beautifully illustrated look at the evolution of surgery, as revealed through rare technical illustrations, sketches, and oil paintings The nineteenth century saw major advances in the practice of surgery. In 1750, the anatomist John Hunter described it as “a humiliating spectacle of the futility of science”; yet, over the next 150 years the feared, practical men of medicine benefited from a revolution in scientific progress and the increased availability of instructional textbooks. Anesthesia and antisepsis were introduced. Newly established medical schools improved surgeons’ understanding of the human body. For the first time, surgical techniques were refined, illustrated in color, and disseminated on the printed page. Crucial Interventions follows this evolution, drawing from magnificent examples of rare surgical textbooks from the mid-nineteenth century. Graphic and sometimes unnerving yet beautifully rendered, these fascinating illustrations, acquired from the Wellcome Collection’s extensive archives, include step-by-step surgical techniques paired with depictions of medical instruments and depictions of operations in progress. Arranged for the layman (from head to toe) Crucial Interventions is a captivating look at the early history of one of the world’s most mysterious and macabre professions.
The medieval origins of current medical practice continue to be a subject of great interest. Tony Hunt has undertaken pioneer work in this field, and now presents, for the first time, the complete set of illustrations which accompany a 13th-century Anglo-Norman translation of Roger of Parma's Surgery (c. 1180), which was the first original treatise on surgery to be written in the medieval West. His commentary on the illustrations relates the drawings precisely to the sections of text they illustrate and thus provides more accurate identification of the different medical treatments depicted by the artist than has previously been the case. These distinctive drawings, almost without parallel in 13th-century England, show a consummate medical illustrator at work, uniquely combining technical, aesthetic and psychological interests. While the illustrations, which were added after the manuscript had been executed, performed a useful function as guide-marks to the contents of the surgical treatise, they are above all an intriguing and delightful monument to an anonymous artist of rare technical accomplishment. It is not only students of medicine who will find much of interest in these early pictorial representations of the medieval pharmacy and the range of therapeutic treatments covered by the surgeon in an age which had not yet produced any clear demarcation between surgery and general medicine.
'This is history with a surgeon's touch: deft, incisive and sometimes excruciatingly bloody' The Sunday Times 'Utterly eccentric and riveting' Mail on Sunday 'Eye-opening and, frequently, eye-watering . . . a book that invites readers to peer up the bottoms of kings, into the souls of rock stars and down the ear canals of astronauts' The Daily Telegraph How did a decision made in the operating theatre spark hundreds of conspiracy theories about JFK? How did a backstage joke prove fatal to world-famous escape artist Harry Houdini? How did Queen Victoria change the course of surgical history? Through dark centuries of bloodletting and of amputations without anaesthetic to today's sterile, high-tech operating theatres, surgeon Arnold van de Laar uses his experience and expertise to tell an incisive history of the past, present and future of surgery. From the dark centuries of bloodletting and of amputations without anaesthetic to today's sterile, high-tech operating theatres, Under the Knife is both a rich cultural history, and a modern anatomy class for us all.
Put patient safety at the center of your surgical protocol—with this essential case-based guide Despite many advances in the practice of surgery, surgical complications continue to cause significant patient morbidity and mortality. Now more than ever, it is the responsibility of every surgeon to take the lead in understanding and mitigating complications and adverse events. Surgical Patient Safety: A Case-based Approach is your blueprint for putting this goal within reach. This timely resource gives you all the insights needed to effectively manage patient safety, covering everything from sharpening communication skills to establishing shared decision-making with patients and their families. Supplementing this important content are numerous case-based examples and exercises, supported by color illustrations, tables, figures, radiographs, and algorithms. Taken as a whole, this new textbook represents a one-stop, hands-on patient safety primer that no other sourcebook can match. Surgical Patient Safety represents a vital call to action—one designed to inspire a physician-driven initiative fostering a global culture of patient safety. Features • The latest practical patient safety tools for surgeons in training, including surgical safety checklists, intraoperative “rescue” strategies, and the global implementation of new regulatory compliance guidelines • Case-based scenarios examining technical challenges and bail-out options in the operating room • Bulleted “pearls and pitfalls” that take you through the decision-making process for diagnostic work up and revision of specific complications • Insights from renowned experts that explain how to handle malpractice lawsuits; navigate the modern dangers of electronic health records; apply the pragmatic “IKEA approach” for patient advocacy; and much more • A must-read for all practicing surgeons, independent of the surgical subspecialty
"When I review my own professional life and its many satisfactions, the greatest is not the surgical operations I have performed, nor the thousands of patients that I have cured, but the successful young surgeons whose instruction and training I have directed." (George Heuer, 1882-1950). This is very true of my four-decade-long surgical career too. In the process of instruction and training of the young surgeon, I have had the habit of noting down various little bits of surgical, medical, and general facts to help me remember details, and recall, of the same. These have been taken from books and journals read, as well as noted down from conferences and meetings attended. Entries were made into little yearly diaries. Over the last two decades, I have used these as a good source of my material for the numerous surgical quiz shows I have conducted for the relevant audiences (mainly surgical postgraduates and residents of the MS and DNB general surgical streams) at City, State, and National levels. Also, as part of my Quiz shows are numerous 'filler slides' of surgical aphorisms, myths, and humour, making it into a whole session of 'Quizotainment'. I have now attempted to put together all these surgical and medical facts into some sort of order and grouping to help easy reference and retrieval. I have included surgical aphorisms and humour, too, to offer an angle of fun while assimilating the fact, hence the title Fact and Fun in Surgery. It is important to note that the vast majority of the facts and quotes are NOT my own, and for many of them, I have not been able to trace their origin. I immensely thank all these unmentioned contributors for having shared their facts in the surgical literature or discussions. I have listed the broad references of the books in which the majority of these facts and fun quips are mentioned, but the list is not complete. It is also relevant to note that these fact listings are not exhaustive, nor do they cover all disciplines of medicine. They are predominantly surgical, with a few from the grey areas between surgery and other specialities. By compiling this book of surgical and medical facts, I do hope to fill a small void in surgical learning at the student level. I have always maintained that a person with no sense of humour has no sense at all and so used the aphorism, the pun, and the light-hearted wit, judiciously, to cool down the burden of memorisation, and later, to help in the recall. The combination of fact with fun definitely helps retentiveness and recollection of the fact. The book will, perhaps, help teachers too, in their preparations for teaching sessions.
Written by a world-renowned historian of surgery, this volume is a masterful textual and pictorial history of the evolution of American surgery. Dr. Rutkow draws on his experience as a surgeon and a historian to provide an enlightening account of the development of surgery in the context of American social, economic, and political history. He also chronicles the complete histories of the surgical specialties. Interspersed with the narrative is an extraordinary collection of archival photographs and drawings, many of which have never before been published. More than 1,000 biographies of pioneering surgeons are deftly woven into the narrative.
