Surgery is the most common medical practice around today that employs investigative work and treatment in one. Surgery is used to remove tumors, bone fragments, investigate a health issue after x rays have been taken or even to repair broken bones or torn ligaments in the elbow, knee, or ankle. Surgeries are also used to save a trauma victim’s life, repair a torn off finger or toe or even ear (see Mike Tyson). An elective surgery is done to repair a non life threatening problem. Emergency surgery is just that; to repair an organ or body part or save one’s life in an emergency situation. An amputation is when a leg or arm needs to be removed from the body due to an infection that has spread or a wound that cannot be healed by any other means.
Surgery has adapted immensely over the past 200 years. During the United States Civil War, soldiers were operated on in large rooms with hundreds of other soldiers lying right besides them. Obviously, not the most clean or sanitized situation. Surgeons would remove legs and arms and then patch up the patient. Most surgery patients, if they didn’t die on the table, wouldn’t last much more than a year or two, if that long, after surgery was performed. They would contract gangrene or other infections.
The oldest known methods of surgery date back to the ancient Egyptians about 3,500 years ago. There are texts from this period documenting surgeries performed by priests who were ‘specialized’ in medical treatments. All of these procedures were documented on papyrus, known as the first patient medical records.
Surgical patients are, for the most part, sedated with anesthesia so they do not feel the pain of the surgery while it is taking place. The anesthesia ‘knocks out’ the patient to the point of a nap. After surgery the patient must spend a required amount of time in the hospital’s recovery ward for the wound or area to heal properly and if there are any complications the doctors and nurses are only a room away. Following surgery, most patients are placed on painkillers if the surgery requires them. Some types are Percocet, Motrin or even Oxycontin.
There are all types of surgeries that are life saving and elective. They are plastic surgery to repair a broken nose or to ‘improve’ upon one’s body, colorectal surgery, oral surgery, podiatric surgery, ophthalmology and cardiothoracic surgery to name a few.
Surgical procedures can be the most expensive medical procedures available today. There are so many doctors, nurses and equipment involved that some procedures can cost anywhere from $10,000 $15,000 apiece. The most popular form of elective surgery in the United States today is plastic surgery. Plastic surgery is used to increase or reduce breast size, reconstruct a face either by choice or after a horrific accident, repair a torn off ear from an accident, reshape the lips or adjust the eyelids. All of these surgeries are performed by licensed surgeons across the country and cost a hefty penny.
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