Awesome surgeries, and one old anesthesia dude... (Blog 4)

Wednesday, December 29^th 2010

Bonn

Wednesday was pretty amazing. We got to see some surgeries and the anesthesia museum. Daniel, Chris and I got to witness an open heart aortic valve replacement. The atmosphere was so relaxed and the surgeons were quite entertaining. It was cool to see how skilled the surgeons were at technique. I grasped a better appreciation for the level of expertise they must have to be surgeons. It goes beyond just medical knowledge and application. The surgeons must have steady hands, be graceful with a needle, and have a sharp prolonged attention span.

During the valve replacement the chest was cut open and the patient put on a heart lung machine. This was interesting and lined up nicely with my track of BMEN, instrumentation. The heart was stopped and aorta clamped. Calcification occluded the chamber of the heart leading to the Aorta and had to be cut out. The surgeon held open the incisions made in the heart with a thread that was skillfully sewn so that it could later be woven into the replacement valve and cinched up tight to reseal the lesions. Amazing! Many threads going from incision flap to vise clamps encircled the heart. There were probably 20 vice clamps that caught the many different thread ends that were draped over the chest cavity in this circular pattern. After the threading was done the valve was inserted and woven into the threads. Next the valve was secured in the cavity. Its openings were covered with a gortex type material (that looked like cotton rectangular gause) that was sewn over the lip of each incision flap. This helped the thread not tear through the tissue after surgery in high stress situations. The surgeon said its to help them sleep better at night. The threads used were not the dissolvable since not enough tissue grows back in to secure the replacement valve. A few tugs on each thread and everything pulled together smoothly. It was like watching an artist. This was such a cool experience and I am excited about getting to see it again in Vienna!

After that we got to go to the anesthesia museum. The man was old and knowledgeable but very slow. It was entertaining to watch everyone try and stay focused. I really enjoyed getting to see him deliver the tour because of his joy and passion for what he does. It was hard to stay awake, but that was mostly due to everyone adjusting to the new sleep schedule and getting used to all the walking we had been doing. Another thing that stood out was how clean the museum was. I liked the white wall layout with silver paneled plaques containing descriptions of everything. Even if it was all German, it still looked cool. The glass cases with modern lighting and flooring drew the eye of the observer well. Another interesting note from the museum was how well machined the tools and devices were in the early 20^th century. They may have been restored or repainted, but they looked awesome. Overall I felt the museum was a plus and I am glad I got to experience it.