During surgery there are a number of medical staff members in the operating room. There are usually one or two nurses, a scrub or surgical technician who helps ensure that the surgeon has the necessary tools, an assistant to the surgeon, possibly medical students and residents, and an anesthesiologist.
Surgical Procedures
Surgical procedures are done to repair injuries to joints, muscles and bones and to diagnose and treat certain diseases. Learn more about surgical procedures from our experts.
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In the immediate postoperative period of colorectal surgery, you will receive some form of analgesia that you can control, termed Patient Controlled Anesthesia ("PCA"). This may be a device with a button you push to deliver intravenous medication to yourself, or in the form of an epidural catheter, with the same opportunity to self-administer additional pain medication. The epidural catheter is similar to that placed in women who are in labor and is very safe. It seems to block the input of pain sensation, and therefore, if effective, will block the response to pain. Once you are able to take pain medicine by mouth, these other methods will be removed. Interim forms of pain management include intravenous or intramuscular injections given by the nursing staff.
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In this WisePatient video, oncologist Daniel Labow, MD, of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, describes the benefits of robotic surgery and laparascopic surgery to treat colon cancer. Which is best depends on the patient, the cancer, and the surgeon.
Find out more about this DVD:
Is There an Advantage for a Patient Having Robotic vs. Laparoscopic Surgery?
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There are three options for cervical spine surgery. In this video, Andy Hecht, MD, co-director of Spine Surgery at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, talks about the difference in the three neck spine surgeries.
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St Francis Medical Center answeredThe Mazor Robotics Renaissance Guidance System is a state-of-the-art technology for spine surgery. It is a very small robot that is placed just over the patient when they’re under anesthesia. Using a computer system in conjunction with computed tomography (CT) scans, the surgeon can see the patient’s spine and use the robot to align a special type of drill to perfectly place pedicle screws used in spinal surgery.
Trinity Health is a Catholic health care organization that acts in accordance with the Catholic tradition and does not condone or support all practices covered in this site. In case of emergency call 911. This site is educational and not a substitute for professional medical advice, always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider.
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The benefits of the Mazor Robotics Renaissance Guidance System are that spine surgery is both more precise and less invasive (and therefore less painful).
Traditionally, spinal surgery is exceedingly painful because of the dissection, which exposes the areas of the spine for placement of pedicle screws freehand. By using the Mazor Robotics Guidance System, the surgeon makes an incision that is just a centimeter long, uses a guide that is about the diameter of a pencil to place the screw and uses a high-speed drill to anchor the pedicle. The speed of the procedure means less surgical time, which is always better for the patient.
The robot allows for nearly perfect trajectory to place these screws into the spine, avoiding all concerns people have such as being paralyzed, damaging a nerve, or having a severe amount of pain after surgery. The robot really guides the surgeon’s hand. The surgeon is still needed, so we haven’t become obsolete yet, but the robot has perfected this portion of spine surgery to make pedicle screw placement nearly perfect.
Furthermore, the robot allows the surgeon to minimize the amount of radiation that the patient is exposed to during the surgery. Traditionally, spinal surgery has required a lot of x-rays. With robotic technology, there is just one x-ray to start, one x-ray at the end and the rest of it is without x-ray.
Trinity Health is a Catholic health care organization that acts in accordance with the Catholic tradition and does not condone or support all practices covered in this site. In case of emergency call 911. This site is educational and not a substitute for professional medical advice, always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider.
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The advantages of the sleeve gastrectomy for weight loss include the following:
- Weight loss is very, very consistent. The vast majority of people who have a sleeve gastrectomy will lose 50%, and most of them closer to 70%, of the amount of weight that they are overweight in a year.
- Sleeve gastrectomy is simpler to understand than a gastric bypass and it’s much more elegant. The surgeon removes about 70% of the stomach and creates a banana-shaped tube. The sleeve gastrectomy has become the operation of choice in the United States.
- The intestines are not cut and rerouted. The patient has a small tube rather than having two new connections to heal with the gastric bypass operation.
- While a normal outlet of the stomach, the pylorus, is retained, people don’t get what’s called the “dumping syndrome” to anywhere near the significance of what they can get with the gastric bypass operation.
Trinity Health is a Catholic health care organization that acts in accordance with the Catholic tradition and does not condone or support all practices covered in this site. In case of emergency call 911. This site is educational and not a substitute for professional medical advice, always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider.
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Less invasive surgery, disc replacement surgery, using growth factors to help grow bones —these are all elements of spine surgery in the future, says Andy Hecht, MD, co-director of Spine Surgery at The Mount Sinai Medical Center.