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

@drspouse I think I speak for all of us when I beg you to post the words to the tracheotomy song, and the tune it is sung to. 🙏

I wonder if you could snip the appendix off with a pair of red hot pliers and cauterise at the same time ? Save sewing ....

Sadly not, because it's a tube.

If you did as you suggest, the burnt bit would die off and leave a hole for faecal matter to pour through...

In reality we tie a ligation suture, or place a clip around the base of the appendix and then use cautery to remove it,leaving the suture holding living tissue which can then heal up sealing the hole.

If at first you don't succeed .... then maybe surgery isn't for you.

No. I can’t even cut up raw meat so cutting into a person 🤢

I'm imagining peering at the Haynes Manual of Surgery following each step, including the bits where:

• it directs me to a different section for a task so, what looked like a simple 10 step process is actually 57 steps.
• it says 'do x, having first done y' and I do x without noticing the second part of the sentence. So something falls deeper into the innards or can't be put back together afterwards.

I think the patient would be doomed.

Refitting is the reverse of removal ....

If it was an "easy" op to perform then I wouldn't have a 6inch appendectomy scar when the trainee surgeon fixed my burst appendix and peritonitis! I gathered afterwards from him that it was a bit tricky!

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

There was a surgeon called Doyle who worked in one of the Liverpool hospitals, he was in a POW camp and had apparently removed his own appendix, wonder if it's the same person?

Years of watching ER and greys anatomy. I'm pretty sure I could skip the first 2 years of medical school if I wanted to so yeah I think I could have a decent go at it.
Plus I've got my level 3 first aid so what could possibly go wrong?

@Giggorata I shall message you as it gives you my location.

In looking for that link I forgot there was also a song about how to have a baby in a car, land a plane, get out of quicksand, and solve the banking crisis.

I went to a talk given by a doctor who'd worked in Antarctica, she'd had a full medical before she went out there, because once winter sets in then no one can get in or out, she had a clean bill of health.

She'd then discovered a lump in her breast.
She operated on herself but said she had the "easy" job compared to the pilots who'd dropped off the medical equipment that she required to do the op and the further treatment. The pilots only had a small window of opportunity to do the drop and weather was poor.

No problem - just make sure you put the knives and forks in the dishwasher afterwards.......

Well if the person was dying and there was no alternative then of course I’d try and I’d hope I could learn enough that I’d do a half okay job which only needed minor correction when back in civilisation with proper doctors! Surely most people would give it their level best if there was no alternative. Obviously a proper surgeon would be a better alternative!

I thought that said “tree surgeon fixed my burst appendix” at first and was flabbergasted that some poor Tree Surgeon has found himself in the very situation described in the OP!

I wonder if a vet would be able to hazard a guess? Probably much the same as a pig appendix.

I could definitely amputate a limb and cauterise it with a poker.

You say that, but it doesn't work.

You need to tie off bleeding vessels that are too big to cauterise... The fun thing is that if you cut them without k owing where they are, they tend to retract deeper into the stump where you can't stop the bleeding.

There's a reason why 30% of patients died under the hands of even the best Victorian surgeons, which is probably the best analogy to what we're suggesting here.... One famous operation had a 300% mortality.

I definitely could. It's probably on YouTube, I'd watch it on half speed and practice on the dummy.

The trouble is now I have to actually go and research this just in case I ever need this very specific party trick.

Well, fine, I'll do a lobotomy up under an eyelid then. No one died from that.

300%? Did the surgeon and scrub nurse die too?

@CaraMiaMonCher definitely not a tree surgeon! 😂
Is it an urban myth that those working at the north/south pole have to have had their appendix out before they travel there for work? I imagine the transfer time to the nearest hospital (within a good weather window) would be challenging to say the least!

If the patient is in a situation where I'm the only choice for surgeon, I assume they would die of infection regardless of how well I operated.

Astronauts have their appendix removed! Appendixa? Appendices?