Surgeons are the masters of fluids because they need to be. They care for patients who cannot eat or drink for various reasons; for example, they have hemorrhaged, undergone surgery, or lost fluids from tubes, drains, or wounds. Surgeons are…
The inflammatory response occurs following invasion by foreign microbes with direct tissue injury or in response to systemic stress such as hypothermia or hypotension. Multiple cellular pathways function simultaneously in an attempt to limit further injury and spur healing. While…
“The intimacy between patient and surgeon is short-lived, but closer than between a son and his own father.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward The privilege of opening the body of another to manipulate, remove, repair, or implant is a profound endeavor…
“If there were no past, science would be a myth; the human mind a desert. Evil would preponderate over good, and darkness would overspread the face of the moral and scientific world.” Samuel D. Gross (Louisville Review 1:26–27, 1856) The…