The Buzz for deafness

How to improve operating room efficiency

Bundled pricing in surgery centers

The prefrontal leukotomy procedure developed by Moniz and Lima was modified in 1936 by American neurologists Walter J. Freeman II and James W. Watts. Freeman preferred the use of the term lobotomy and therefore renamed the procedure “prefrontal lobotomy.” The American team soon developed the Freeman-Watts standard lobotomy, which laid out an exact protocol for how a leukotome (in this case, a spatula) was to be inserted and manipulated during the surgery. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now lobotomyThe use of lobotomy in the United States was resisted and criticized heavily by American neurosurgeons. However, because Freeman managed to promote the success of the surgery through the media, lobotomy became touted as a miracle procedure, capturing the attention of the public and leading to an overwhelming demand for the operation. In 1945 Freeman streamlined the procedure, replacing it with transorbital lobotomy, in which a picklike instrument was forced through the back of the eye sockets to pierce the thin bone that separates the eye sockets from the frontal lobes. The pick’s point was then inserted into the frontal lobe and used to sever connections in the brain (presumably between the prefrontal cortex and thalamus). In 1946 Freeman performed this procedure for the first time on a patient, who was subdued prior to the operation with electroshock treatment.The transorbital lobotomy procedure, which Freeman performed very quickly, sometimes in less than 10 minutes, was used on many patients with relatively minor mental disorders that Freeman believed did not warrant traditional lobotomy surgery, in which the skull itself was opened. A large proportion of such lobotomized patients exhibited reduced tension or agitation, but many also showed other effects, such as apathy, passivity, lack of initiative, poor ability to concentrate, and a generally decreased depth and intensity of their emotional response to life. Some died as a result of the procedure. However, those effects were not widely reported in the 1940s, and at that time the long-term effects were largely unknown. Because the procedure met with seemingly widespread success, Moniz was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (along with Swiss physiologist Walter Rudolf Hess). Lobotomies were performed on a wide scale during the 1940s; Freeman himself performed or supervised more than 3,500 lobotomies by the late 1960s. The practice gradually fell out of favour beginning in the mid-1950s, when antipsychotics, antidepressants, and other medications that were much more effective in treating and alleviating the distress of mentally disturbed patients came into use. Today lobotomy is rarely performed; however, shock therapy and psychosurgery (the surgical removal of specific regions of the brain) occasionally are used to treat patients whose symptoms have resisted all other treatments.

industryWhat do physicians expect from surgical scheduling software?

Among the oldest surviving scholarly works in neurosurgery is the so-called ‘Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus’(Breasted, 1930)

Anne: I was not present at your survey, so I don't know much about you. So maybe we could just start by you telling me about the circumstances for you, going to the US, how old you were, your first impressions, why you went or your family went.Mike: When I was really young, I had gotten accident that required surgery and I needed to get that surgery done, so when I went to the hospital and get it done there was actually a couple of people from a criminal organization that were supposed to, I guess, kill somebody in there. I remember this like it was yesterday. I had a little breathing mask on and the doctor was telling me to breathe when he counted the eight, I could just hear the gunshots.Mike: And I remember waking up in a bus, because my mom had gone inside the hospital, grabbed me and got on the bus. And I remember waking up kind of like, "Where am I?" And she ended up telling me all that happened, because of that we decided—well, my mom decided—that she wanted a better life for us. So we ended up crossing the border to Arizona. It actually took us three days.

Because complete typing and cross-matching takes up to 45 minutes, patients requiring emergent transfusions are given type O-negative RBCs.

In either scenario, a massive hemothorax is an indication for operative intervention, but tube thoracostomy is critical to facilitate lung reexpansion, which may improve oxygenation and cardiac performance as well as tamponade venous bleeding.

Although it may be estimated on chest radiograph, tube thoracostomy is the only reliable means to quantify the amount of hemothorax.

In 2017, Canadians were on waiting lists for an estimated 1,040,791 total procedures. Often, wait times are lengthy. For example, the median wait time for arthroplastic surgery (hip, knee, ankle, shoulder) ranges from 20 weeks to 52 weeks. In the British National Health Service, cancelations are common. Last year, the National Health Service canceled 84,827 elective operations in England for nonclinical reasons on the day the patient was due to arrive. The same year, it canceled 4,076 urgent operations in England, including 154 urgent operations canceled two or more times. Times of high illness are a key driver in this problem. For instance, in flu season, the National Health Service canceled 50,000 “non-urgent” surgeries. In Canada, private insurance is outlawed (as it would be under Sanders’ proposal). In 2017, “an estimated 63,459 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment outside Canada.” In Britain, private insurance is permitted—but it is an additional cost to the taxes that British citizens pay for the National Health Service. Escaping the system is an option for the wealthy, or for those who are willing to forego other expenditures to get the care they want or need.