Doctor Performs Amputation By Text Message 242
Peace Corps Online writes "Vascular surgeon David Nott performed a life-saving amputation on a boy in DR Congo following instructions sent by text message from a colleague in London. The boy's left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous; there were just 6in (15cm) of the boy's arm remaining, much of the surrounding muscle had died and there was little skin to fold over the wound. 'He had about two or three days to live when I saw him,' Nott said. Nott, volunteering with the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, knew he needed to perform a forequarter amputation requiring removal of the collar bone and shoulder blade and contacted Professor Meirion Thomas at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, who had performed the operation before. 'I texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it,' Nott said."
interestingly the text message device could be use (Score:5, Insightful)
I long ago discovered my text-messaging device allows me to talk directly to another person through his or her text-messaging device. Amazing!
And, not only is this more efficient and accurate, it costs far less. Imagine the lives that could be saved if doctors were given instructions for talking through these text-messaging devices. I, for one welcome the emergence of these devices and their new-found features.
Re:interestingly the text message device could be (Score:1, Insightful)
Because you want the doctor to be operating on you one-handed. Yea...
You want all the instructions before starting. (Score:5, Insightful)
else you are in deep trouble when the patient is open and the battery runs down or the net fails.
Re:interestingly the text message device could be (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoken like somebody who's never needed to pay the astronomical roaming charges or put up with the hideous interference and quality loss on a voice call.
Sometimes text is faster and cheaper, because you're not spending 90% of the call going "What? Please repeat!"
Re:interestingly the text message device could be (Score:5, Insightful)
Text message will ensure that all the details get there, not some garbled, half-heard phone call. You also get all the information already available if you need to look back at it quickly and it's in neat understandable writing (anyone who's ever read a doctor's scrawl will know what I mean). For this purpose (transmitting a technical procedure step by step) it's the better of the two media.
seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:interestingly the text message device could be (Score:3, Insightful)
Text message will ensure that all the details get there, not some garbled, half-heard phone call.
If you're somewhere that calls are garbled, what assurance do you have that text messages will get through?
Text is given a very low priority on the wireless network and there is no guarantee that it will ever arrive.
Did you miss the part where he's IN AFRICA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you somehow miss the part where he was calling from Africa to the UK? Have you never priced an international call?
Assume that you're an Orange customer. (It's the first UK cell phone provider I could think of off the top of my head.) Roaming in Africa and calling England costs £1.20/minute (or over $1.75/minute) if you have the Orange Travel plan.
Texting is much, much cheaper. In fact, in Africa, it's the dominant form of cell phone communication because voice rates are so ridiculously high in comparison even among local carriers, according to a family member who spent several months there on a mission trip.
Re:How do you fit complex instructions in text? (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of medical jargon is (A) incredibly standardized and (B) designed to abbreviate.
Ever hear a doctor reciting a prescription over the phone to a pharmacist? They can compress a substantial amount of information about dosages, timing, when to take/avoid something, etc., into maybe a dozen characters. It'd be a bit moreso when you're talking about *removing someone's shoulder blade* (gah!), but if people on both sides know the jargon for anatomy and techniques, you'd probably be surprised at how much information you can condense without causing confusion.
Re:interestingly the text message device could be (Score:5, Insightful)
The doctor in England had done the procedure before, presumably successfully, whereas the textbook could make no such guarantee. Plus, as you said, the doctor in the DRC could ask him to clarify.
And you're right, it's not that funny, or alarming. What it is is fraking badass and awesome. I mean, they both had the skills to pull off an amputation by text message. That's some serious medical street cred right there, on both sides!
Plus, they saved a kid's life. Good for both of them! *raises glass*
Surgeon able to follow instructions from surgeon! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who else already learned how to do this through (Score:3, Insightful)
You did notice the part where it said that he was in Africa without access to advanced medical facilities and that the boy was only days away from dying without this operation, right? But hey, better to let a kid die when you can save him than embarrass your profession through expediency, I guess.
Re:Man... (Score:3, Insightful)
Only the US pay for incoming texts AFAIK... So never go anywhere with a civilised communications infrastructure - there, they'd be able to amputate bits of you for free!
Re:interestingly the text message device could be (Score:5, Insightful)
What it is is fraking badass and awesome.
Actually that is awesome. And somewhat badass. Though not fraking badass and awesome.
Fraking badass and awesome would be for example when Dr Leonid Rogozov removed his own appendix at Vostok Station in Antarctica in 1961. Of course when your own ass is on the line, your ability to perform suck fraking badass and awesome feats generally increases exponentially.