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Experts’ Techniques – Adult Cardiac Surgery
The text should provide sufficient detail to permit an experienced surgeon to follow the guidelines, but including no extraneous background material. Write to the level of the practicing cardiothoracic surgeon. There is no set length for the text, but for most procedures a total of 4 to 6 typewritten pages should be sufficient. The text can be provided as a Word, a plain text, or a Wordperfect document.
Special headings are recommended to standardize the presentation and to ensure that specific points are addressed in each description. For most headings a single paragraph or a number of bullet points should suffice. Use most of the text to provide a detailed description of special operative techniques. The headings to use include:
Patient selection
A brief paragraph should describe which patients are particularly good candidates for the procedure. When appropriate, specific exclusion criteria should be listed.
Operative steps
List as completely as possible the unique operative steps that are required to successfully perform the procedure. Write to the level of the practicing cardiothoracic surgeon. Several paragraphs may be necessary to complete this portion.
Preference card
List any unusual instrumentation, specific suture material, instructions for the nursing staff, etc, that are required to perform the procedure.
Tips and pitfalls
This section is perhaps the most personal expression of the author and is the most useful to the reader. Tricks of the trade are important. Describe what you look for that determines whether things are going well or whether the procedure should be aborted.
References (including on-line links where appropriate)
A short list (5 -10) of recently published and important articles should be provided. Be sure to include appropriate articles from your own bibliography. If there are useful on-line links with which you are familiar, list these as well.
Images and videos are an essential component of Experts’ Techniques pages and the author should indicate in the text where illustrations are to be included.
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