Second Opinions Patients are frequently advised, or decide on their own, to seek a second opinion after a recommendation to undergo an operation. That seems reasonable but it can actually result in more uncertainty than existed prior to the second opinion. When the surgeon agrees with the first recommendation the Read More
Category: Chest Surgery
This guest blog was written by Mark K. Ferguson, MD. Mark and I were colleagues at the University of Chicago where Adams and Phemister performed the first transthoracic esophagectomy with reconstruction. He has led the Thoracic Surgery division for many years and is an accomplished esophageal surgeon. ~ The average Read More
Where’s my doctor? For most of my practicing life it was customary for surgeons to care and be responsible for their patients at all times. Times change. Now the above question is not unusual and is followed by, “Who are you?” What’s going on? What has happened to the patient/surgeon Read More
This week’s blog is by a friend and colleague Dr. Ed Bender. Ed is a cardiothoracic surgeon who is affiliated with Stanford and practices in the Bay area. He is a pioneer in the development and use of Smartphone Apps for surgeons. Using Smartphone Apps in a Daily Medical Read More
The surgeon’s dilemma. An unescapable result of any invasive operation, certainly the chest surgery I performed for several decades, is pain. Patients hurt…a lot. My patients needed, actually required, narcotics/opioids (opioids are narcotics) for their pain. If the pain was insufficiently treated they not only suffered but were unable Read More
Air in the chest. The lungs completely fill the thoracic cavity (the inside of the chest) as we breath in and out. During the normal respiratory cycle the chest enlarges as chest wall muscles draw it out and the diaphragm descends. This creates negative pressure which expands the compliant lungs. Read More
Pus in the chest. Any fluid accumulation in the chest but outside the lung, between the two pleural surfaces, constitutes a pleural effusion. My previous blog addressed malignant ones. An infected effusion is called empyema. The most frequent cause is pneumonia. Uninfected effusions frequently accompany pneumonia but occasionally they are Read More
Cancer and fluid in the chest. When a surgeon looks into a chest the initial view reveals only a lung. It seems to take all the room. That’s because it’s full of air. However, while it touches the inside of the chest wall it’s not attached. The lung is quite Read More
Fad or the future? In my last blog I touted the benefits of minimally invasive chest surgery, thoracoscopy, which provides as good outcomes as open surgery but causes much less pain and allows patients to recover quicker. So-called robotic surgery is felt by some surgeons to be the next advance Read More
Less is more…beneficial. For years surgeons had only one option for an operation to provide access to internal organs: open surgery performed through a usually generous incision through skin and muscle. In a chest operation the access procedure to get inside a chest is called a thoracotomy. It begins with Read More
