Content from the Journal of the American Neurological Surgeons.
Like most active clinical surgeons, I’ve been sued a few times for malpractice over the course of a long career in academia and private practice. In addition, I’ve served as an expert witness for the defense in about 20 malpractice actions that did not involve me or my group. For most physicians, malpractice actions are…
By Ulrich Hake, MD, PhD The cardiosurgical – to be more precise the coronary surgical – world is now confronted with the latest technological innovation – the proximal and the distal anastomotic device. The principal indication until now to use a proximal anastomotic device is beating heart surgery for those cases where venous grafts are…
Despite a half-century of experience in heart valve reconstruction, the tricuspid valve has been a “second class structure” for cardiac surgery. More than 20 years ago, the high incidence of tricuspid disease in our population, encouraged us to attempt to clarify the indications for repair, particularly in patients with functional tricuspid incompetence (1). Since functional…
By Anne Vinsel, MS Comments on “We Need an Attitude Adjustment” by Benson Wilcox, M.D. Dear Dr. Wilcox, I share office space with an area used by medical students to look through notebooks of physicians they can shadow and use as mentors, and I coach some medical students for their boards, so I hear (or…
Our society has changed vastly over the years in both positive and negative ways. Despite constant nonlinear changes, our medical community has evolved in a positive way toward better services for patients through improved hospital care, advancing technology, genomic discoveries, better training, improved medical records, outcomes-based therapy and closer self-scrutiny. No doubt society has demanded…
Women in the field of thoracic surgery were here to stay after Nina Braunwald, M.D., Ann McKiel and Nermin Tutunju became the first women certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery in 1961. Dr. Braunwald, in 1968, established a program in cardiovascular surgery at the University of CA in San Diego. By 1968, there…
In 1993 I finished my cardiothoracic residency and an additional year as the chief resident at the “number one cardiac surgery hospital in the country.” I felt like Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic: ” I was on top of the world.” So how is it that nine years later I’ve been unemployed for 3 months and…
The learning curve is no stranger to individuals involved in learning surgical techniques, and can be painfully obvious to those involved in the training. Yet, there is one aspect of the learning curve that has eluded me for many years. I cannot identify what I learned or taught exactly with pinpoint accuracy to come off…
“The one freedom that can never be taken away from us, that always remains, is the freedom to determine our attitude toward our circumstances.” Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning” Even cardiothoracic surgeons, who are characteristically fearless in facing their patients’ complex problems decisively, may sometimes find it hard to be equally resolute when confronting…
In his book The Third Wave, Alvin Toffer arbitrarily divides recent time into three periods: · I. Agrarian Age ca 8000 BC – 1700 AD · II. Industrial Revolution 1700 – 1955 · III. Technologicval Age 1955 – Present During the Agrarian Age, man stayed and worked near home, did little traveling, measured time by…
As members of our cardiothoracic surgical specialty are subjected to an increasing frequency and variety of stresses, ethical considerations are assuming a more prominent role in everyday practice. Frustrated by the ever-changing procedural and financial restrictions of Medicare and managed care; by the complexities of business arrangements with partners, competitors, referring physicians and hospitals; by…
The Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland SCTS was founded in 1934 and was initially devoted to the practice of thoracic surgery, which at that time was mostly for tuberculosis. After World War II, with such pioneers as Lord Brock and Sir Thomas Holmes-Sellors, cardiac surgery was introduced and the number of…
Although one may cast doubt upon the significance of the World Congress of the International Society in the current era of internet or satellite transmission, nobody denies the importance of international communication. English is the international language at this moment and will continue to be so as long as the worldwide webs are growing. It…
From November 2000 until November 2001, I served as president of the BACTS, The Belgian Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. Our sixth General Assembly was held on November 10, 2001 and for my Presidential Address I chose this quotation from Winston Churchill: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.…
The following represents my views and experiences as a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. It is my hope that the reader will gain some insight into a specialty that has undergone major changes in the last decades. When Gruntzig introduced angioplasty, I was just beginning my career in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. I attended one of…
A few weeks ago I took a weekend trip to Denver from my home in Billings, Montana. I arrived at the airport 90 minutes early as directed. Three minutes later I was ready to board, as things are a little slow in Billings at 0600 on Saturday morning. Two baby faced National Guard conscripts patrolled…
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