Thoracotomy

Often a dramatic, often desperate, measure in emergency care. Anil Menon gives us a glimpse of what it’s like in the trauma room:

Sure, I did it on cadavers, but it surprised me to cut through the chest with more emphasis on speed, and less concern for precision. It was even more surreal to break open the ribs and see the lungs filling and deflating like a machine. Beneath the lungs the man’s heart quivered. Ventricular fibrillation is what it looked like; a state where the heart does not adequately pump blood.

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7. The glory of a thoracotomy . . . or not

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Tagged as: emergency, heart