Five Patients - Crichton Michael - Страница 20

More recently has come the ability to store frozen blood. This single technical capability has solved several traditional banking problems, and indeed is now integral to the MGH function: most open-heart cases are done with frozen blood [Dr. Charles Huggins, an MGH surgeon, was one of the pioneers in making frozen blood practical for clinical use].

Formerly, all blood had to be used within three weeks. Now it can be stored at -120° F. for five years or more. In the past, patients had to be matched to their own blood type. Now, the freezing-thawing process washes out serum antibodies, which means that type O frozen blood can be transfused to anyone, regardless of his blood type. The need for the bank to stock many different blood types is therefore reduced.

And, finally, there is evidence that the risk of hepatitis, a traditional problem with transfusions, is reduced when frozen blood is used.

There are, of course, some drawbacks to frozen blood. It is more expensive at the present time. Also, some blood components, notably platelets, which are important to clotting, are lost and must be supplied separately. But there are easy techniques for this.

In fact, the products of the modern blood bank are increasingly sophisticated. In 1942, the bank produced only two products-whole blood and plasma (the liquid portion without the cells). But it is now possible to give whole blood, or packed red cells without plasma, or platelets; it is possible to give plasma, or only the protein from the plasma, or only specific parts of the total protein without the others. Each of these specialized blood bank products is becoming increasingly important to the conduct of modern medicine.

What has all this meant to surgery? As it has become more scientific and more complex, a certain amount of the drama and flair, the spectacle that Warren remembered, has disappeared-or at least become muted, until it is hardly recognizable.

On Saturday mornings at the hospital, surgical clinics are held for students in which patients are presented pre-operatively and then the students are invited to watch the procedures from the several overhead viewing galleries. This teaching exercise is the last remnant of a proud tradition of surgical spectacle. Dr. E. D. Churchill, former MGH Chief of Surgery, gives the following account:

The display of operations at the Hospital on Saturday mornings continued well into the 1920's. Unusual cases were assembled so that the senior surgeons on duty could have an impressive list of operations scheduled for the amphitheater. The two services, East and West, vied with each other in trying to stage the better show. In the Surgical Building, opened in 1900, the display reached major proportions. When the morning's list was a long one, an operation would be started in a small room and then the entire outfit trundled like a troupe of gypsies into the pit of the amphitheater, where the crucial phase of the procedure was demonstrated to the visiting doctors. The surgeons would be allotted, say, fifteen minutes. Whether or not the operation had been completed, at the expiration of the allotted time the tents were folded, the troupe moved off stage to complete the operation elsewhere, and a new act took over… Great weight was placed on the speed and daring of the operator… Tension mounted when some prima donna showed reluctance to withdraw from the spotlight and overstayed his time to hold the audience spellbound in an ad lib recounting of his surgical prowess.

The prowess of the surgeon has steadily increased since then, to the point where reconstructing a nearly severed hand is, if not commonplace, at least nothing to get very excited about.

And if, in this age of television, the surgeon shows more flamboyance than is scientifically necessary, more sense of drama than is medically indicated, he can at least be excused for upholding the traditions of his calling-and, in a deeper sense, the facts of his life.