Anatomy Lesson: the human heart
(Source: thisloveisnotwhatyouwant)
Craneostomy
World’s First Awake Cardiac Bypass Surgery
Dr Vivek Jawali, chief cardiovascular surgeon along with his team at Wockhardt Heart Hospital at Bangalore have set a global benchmark by performing the first coronary bypass surgery along with an aortic valve replacement without using general anaesthesia or ventilator support while the patient was on a heart lung machine.The technique of high thoracic epidural analgesia is a highly precision based methodology which involves injection of micro doses of local anaesthetic in the epidural space around the spinal cord which anaesthetises only the chest region while the rest of the system is fully awake.
1. Insert an epidural catheter into the patient the day before the operation.
2. Patient to theatre. Administer a test dose of the epidural below the nape of the neck.
3. Give the patient the full dose and wait 20 minutes for all sensation from the chest to be blocked. Test by prodding the patient’s skin with a needle.
4. Open breastbone using electric saw.
5. Main surgery.
6. Close the breastbone with steel wire and close skin.
7. Transfer patient to intensive care.Aren’t the 7 easy steps just great? And awake open heart surgery, too intense for me.
(Source: chaode-giz)
Malignant melanoma metastases
As usual, my favourite image from the 2011 Nikon Small World competition features Daphnia. See others from the Lives Within a Drop of Water collection.
A Creative Biology Class - The organelles of an animal cell made out of plastercine
I find you fascinating.
A picture began circulating in November. It should be “The Picture of the Year,” or perhaps, “Picture of the Decade.” It won’t be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the U.S. paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.
The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with Spina Bifida & would not survive if removed from his mother’s womb. Little Samuel’s mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner’s remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.
During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section & makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision & firmly grasped the surgeon’s finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, & that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.
The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, “Hand of Hope.” The text explaining the picture begins, “The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother’s uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.”
Little Samuel’s mother said they “wept for days” when they saw the picture. She said, “The photo reminds us pregnancy isn’t about disability or an illness, it’s about a little person” Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful. Now see the actual picture, and it is awesome…incredible…. & hey, pass it on! The world needs to see this one!
