…without killing the patient? I am aware of two cases:
during WWII, a crew man on a US Navy submarine became ill from an attack of appendicitis. There was no MD on board, and the Pharmacists’s Mate (a physician’s assistant) operated on the man successfully.
during the Korean war, a man (Fernand Demara-AKA “the Great Imposter”) who had posed as a Canadian surgeon (and was aboard a Canadian Navy destroyer as the ship’s doctor) operated on 7 gravely wounded korean soldiers-and saved their lives.
So, have non-physicians actually done complex surgery (without killing their patients)? Are these people usually prosecuted?
I don’t know if I would call that a layman. I am not sure what a Pharmacists Mate is in this context but a Physician’s Assistant in the U.S. today is a highly trained medical professional that can diagnose most common disorders and prescribe drugs. They don’t usually do major surgery but I wouldn’t think that would be a huge stretch and they certainly wouldn’t be called a layman afterwards.
There was at least one case a few years ago where a California man had to amputate his own leg with a pocket knife in order to be freed from a large, fallen tree in the woods in order to survive. He made it.
Yes, for example some of these guys. Depending on your definition of ‘complex’, you could include trepanation, cosmetic implants, back-alley abortions, and other fringe activities.
A few years ago, someone had to perform an emergency tracheotomy on a long-distance international flight – I believe from Hong Kong to London? – using common utensils available onboard. Cannot find a cite for it now, but it reportedly saved the person’s life. I remember reading the person needing it had been involved in a minor traffic accident while trying to reach the airport in time and did not bother to get checked out medically.
That reminds of Aron Ralston, who had to cut off his arm below the elbow, to free himself from a boulder that had him pinned in a 3-foot wide slot canyon near the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park south of Moab, Utah.
I saw that story in a Reader’s Digest, if it helps in tracking it down. It wasn’t a tracheostomy; IIRC it was fluid buildup in the chest, compressing the lungs. And the fellow who did it did have to use improvised tools (a blunt pair of scissors, a ballpoint pen, the flight attendants’ demonstration oxygen mask, and a bottle of water), but he was a fully-qualified MD.
Ah yes, it’s coming back to me now. I believe he was an MD now that you mention it. I didn’t see it in Reader’s Digest, but it was in all the papers here.
It seems to me that part of the value of trained doctors is the ability to consistently perform medical operations without harming the patient. So though a 95% chance of killing a patient during an operation is a terrible record for a doctor, for a layperson to have a 95% chance of killing a patient that means 5% of emergency situations as brought up in the OP will go successfully. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well.
I’ve heard allegations that medical equipment (artificial joints, pacemakers, etc.) sales reps have actually performed operations to install the equipment and show the surgeon how it’s done.
I also spent an hour looking for cites, and couldn’t find any.
Who was that guy who made such a famous career of pretending to be other people and/or to have impressive professional credentials, and did a pretty decent job at many such things? Started with a “W”. Was a prison administrator, bunch of other things, and among those things was “surgeon”. I don’t think he did any open-heart transplants but did some surprisingly serious surgery and his patients survived.
le… there was a later dude of similar behavioral characteristics named Frank Abnagale, that’s not who I’m thinking of. OK got it, Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr.Link2
Would you accept a second hand statement from one of these sales reps as a cite?
I was doing a 600 mile service on a then brand new 1988 Volvo. The customer came back to ask me some questions about his car. I was doing some type of adjustment that I had done many times before, so my hands were pretty much just working on their own while I talked with this gentleman.
After a bit, he stopped and said “Do you know you have better manual dexterity than most orthopedic surgeons?”
Me: :eek: What? How do you know this? :dubious:
Him: I am a salesman for artificial joints and pins and screws that get installed various body parts. I have to go into the OR and show the doctors how to do these procedures.
Me: Well thanks for the compliment, but that is kinda scary.
Him: Yeah, don’t ever go for orthopedic work without a really good referral.
Jakob Nufer, pig gelder who supposedly performed the first successful C-section where the mother survived, around the year 1500. The patient was his wife.
As a resident I scrubbed in on a number of orthopedic procedures in which some novel bit of hardware was being used. The company rep was in the OR, gowned and masked but not in sterile gloves. The rep had a laser pointer and used that to direct the orthopod’s attention: now use this, angle it a bit that way, torque it a little more, etc. It seems more impressive than it is; it is a lot easier to tell someone ‘how’ to do something than to actually do it, viz: “Now, stop that bleeding… uh, I dunno, just stop it. Well, get control of the vessel without damaging the nerve; how hard can it be?”
At any rate, the rep wasn’t scrubbed in and never touched the patient or the equipment.
Surgery is not hard to do; it’s hard to get to do.
It’s a link to a review of a 1978 book called “Salesman Surgeon” by William MacKay, which I read waaaaay back when it came out. I remember the scandal which prompted the book’s publication well, as it occurred on my native Long Island. I don’t recall how the story originally broke, but prosthesis salesman MacKay’s tell-all book recounted how he taught (and frequently took over for) surgeons doing hip replacements using his company’s products. Smithtown General Hospital (now defunct) was mentioned in particular as a place where MacKay operated. To hear him tell it, the real surgeons ranged from “merely” lazy and incompetent to nearly falling-down drunk, and it was the doctors himself who insisted that he step in and do the job. Basically, he admitted that he was unqualified, but claimed that he was still better at hip replacement surgery than many of the real doctors. Obviously, he was painting himself in the best possible light, and trying to sell a sensationalistic book, but there’s no denying that MacKay could never have come into the operating room and put his hands on (and in!) patients without the cooperation (at least) of the surgeons involved.
Note that the scandal was in 1978. I have no idea if anything like it is happening in the U.S. today.