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4 New frontiers in surgery: the case of uterus and penis transplantation1 Gennaro Selvaggi and Sean Aas Various types of organ transplantations are now considered standard procedures: heart and liver transplants lengthen lives; kidney transplants also do so, as well as improving quality of life by reducing or eliminating the need for dialysis. The transplantation of faces and limbs, a more novel set of techniques, improves quality of life without necessarily lengthening or ‘saving’ lives. An even more recent development is uterus and penis transplantations
of life-threatening risks’. 2 These myths persist, even as the actual demographics of surgery have changed. The profession has been open to women since the nineteenth century, and the percentage of female practitioners gradually increased over the second half of the twentieth century. 3 However, despite decades of gender parity in British medical education, today women remain under-represented in
institution’ and did not reflect society nor the changing profession of surgery. The report was published in March 2021 and is replete with personal testimonies of racism and discrimination: ‘I feel [as a Black surgeon] that I suffer a different level of scrutiny from other surgeons – and have access to much less support – and it can be very frightening.’ 1 As shown in the previous chapter , surgery is male
innovations in everyday medical practice to humanitarian work in the field. It seems to me a cultural, a psychosocial block. If you talk about surgery , for example, in a humanitarian setting, immediately among many NGO workers their antibodies will rise. They will say, ‘That’s terrible, you can’t allow that Western, too high-tech surgery; it is inappropriate.’ But then if you say, ‘So, what about obstructed labour and interventions to save the mother and the child?’, then
the government won’t see the difference if it is us or ICRC providing the surgery and yet we don’t have the permanent ability to address the needs of non-war-wounded patients, such as obstetrics. Indeed, surgical care available to wounded combatants had been considered a trump card to obtain guarantees of respect and protection from the opposition’s leadership, whose soldiers, according to MSF-H’s head of mission
Brilliant, volatile, and invariably male, the surgeon stereotype is a widespread and instantly recognisable part of Western culture. Setting out to anatomise this stereotype, Cold, Hard Steel offers an exciting new history of modern and contemporary British surgery. The book draws on archival materials and original interviews with surgeons, analysing them alongside a range of fictional depictions, from the Doctor in the House novels to Mills & Boon romances and the pioneering soap opera Emergency Ward 10. Presenting a unique social, cultural, and emotional history, it sheds light on the development and maintenance of the surgical stereotype and explains why it has proved so enduring. At the same time, the book explores the more candid and compassionate image of the surgeon that has begun to emerge in recent years, revealing how a series of high-profile memoirs both challenge the surgical stereotype and simultaneously confirm it.
the profession. Post-war surgery was (and in some ways continues to be) a profoundly hierarchical community, one where seniority is respected, where individuals and interventions carry the weight of their ancestors, and where professional positions were as much inherited or bestowed as they were earned. History, therefore, matters to surgeons, and the myths of the twentieth-century practitioner were shaped by the events and
There are many myths of the modern surgeon, and not all are particularly flattering. Mostly male, authoritarian, and paternalistic, the stereotypical surgeon is volatile, insistent, even abusive – and prone to unpredictable outburst of anger. He cuts first, asks questions later, and is never in doubt. He is good at ‘hard’ surgeries but bad at ‘soft’ skills like compassion
Warfare, conflict, and violence have been part of society for centuries, if not millennia. 1 It is not that surprising, therefore, that military metaphors have ‘invaded’ many other aspects of human society, including surgery and medicine. Thomas Sydenham, one of the most famous physicians of the seventeenth century, suffused his medical writing with military language. He declared a ‘murderous
In early August 1954, the News Chronicle reported on the ‘Brighten-Up’ campaign led by Birmingham’s Local Medical Committee of forty general practitioners (GPs). Working in pairs, these practitioners planned to visit the city’s 400 general practice surgeries, inspecting premises, talking to GPs, and making recommendations for improvements. If successful, the report suggested, ‘no more will there be dingy rooms for the patients to wait in. Gone will be the old, inadequate furniture, and the chilly draughts