Hear me out….do you think you could perform an appendicitis if you had to?

[Ettubrutus]

Let’s say you had 48hrs to practice

Plus a surgical dummy to practice on

And books (you don’t have the internet)

And all the equipment you’d need

AND the person is going to die if you DONT do it

a) Do you think you could pull it off?

*surgeons of MN please come and tell us if the average person could or not given the above

** you get an assistant to suction and stuff

Would diathermy be available?

I'd give it a go if the person would die otherwise. At least it's a bit of hope. My worry would be delaying too long so it burst as not confident I could fix that (would have a go though) so I might not take the entire 48 hours

Well like a lot of people, if they're dying anyway then I'd give it a whirl...as long as there was anaesthetic.

However, if there was anaesthetic and somebody (presumably knowledgable) to suction wouldn't they be better off giving it a go than me, I mean they would at least have seen operations before and would know what a rough running order was.

I'm imagining the scene in Call the midwife Africa Christmas special where Trixie performed a C-section because she'd attended them before and the patient was dying anyway.

Literally this, though I've also watched ER, so I will also do the brain surgery.

I've watched greys anatomy so many times I reckon I could give brain surgery a good go.

Who knows what I might take out then 😄

I would slosh some around in the patients mouth as well I'm not a total psychopath 🤣🤣

I remember seeing an episode of QI where Stephen Fry said that they got people with light aircraft licenses and put them in a simulator of a passenger plane, just to see how they'd cope. And they all crashed within minutes even with instructions from air traffic control.

I reckon it would be really hard to get through the peritoneum without nicking the bowel. And you'd need someone on hand to retract the abdominal muscles, it's not really feasible to do that yourself. And it's not that easy to identify the cecum, whatever Grays would have you believe! You can't just chop off the appendix, you have to stitch up the wound in a way that won't kill off a section of bowel or allow bowel contents to leak into the abdominal cavity. It's not immediately obvious how to do that.

The patient would probably die, but assuming they would anyway from a burst appendix, it might be worth a go - although they'd likely die from shock (if not infection or other surgical complications) if there was no anaesthesia.

Yes but I'm a medical scientist who teaches anatomy in a medical school and when I was a researcher I used to carry out regular dissections and surgery so have a pretty high baseline knowledge.

I watched all of House. I don't think it's an appendicitis. I think it's lupus.

I'd give it my best shot but I would be fucking amazed if I were successful.

In which case I'd open them up, remove the appendix so it doesn't burst then be like oh no, they died anyway. Let's light a fire to cremate the body under a tree laden with snow so the snow falls on the body but it continues to cook so it basically roasts it and it's really tender to eat.

Yes, but I used to be a Theatre nurse so I’ve seen them done, and know about surgical instruments, sutures etc.

No because I'm way way to squeemish.

I've assisted at a few as a junior doctor and I would say probably not unless I could have a really big laparotomy incision so everything was very clearly in view. I could maybe remove the appendix but not sure I could adequately suture the bowel hole up without causing lots of trauma to surrounding tissues.
With laparoscopic surgery I always thought telling what was what was difficult and even moving the instruments in the right direction was challenging, they didn't seem to follow the normal rules.

The televised autopsy was quite fascinating.

it totally depends on the quality of the books. If I had some step by step ones with really good photos, that covered everything I needed - like an ikea guide and cookery book combined, and with a trouble shooting section, then I think I’d be okay.

Isn't always simple though.

Ds' appendicectomy took 4.5 hours because his was in an awkward place and twisted round.

I also had a friend whose appendix was on the wrong side, and they sewed him back up and told his parents they couldn't find it so it must have already been removed. It exploded before they discovered this and he had a scar you could put a finger into (and missed 18 months of school) where they'd had to go back in and clean him up.

Yes, 100%.
I'm practical and non-squeamish.

Love it 😆

Yes similar to some others after 19 seasons of greys I feel more than capable. It's right side yeah?

If they're fully unconscious, yes.
Awake and screaming, no

Surgeons used to suffer with PTSD before gen anaesthesia was practised.

Relative of someone I know did it with a spoon in a Japanese POW camp. They lived. He was a surgeon however.

Oh that’s important - my previous post was based on the idea that other people were dealing with the anaesthetic and pain relief and any other relevant things.