Posted by yxibow on November 12, 2006, at 3:49:21
In reply to Re: Is this true or is it only an urban legend? » yxibow, posted by lukeds on November 11, 2006, at 17:52:08
> But if the psychosurgery (the lobotomy is just one of many) is so bad, why the Masschusetts General Hospital, that is one of the best in the world, if not the best, still do psychosurgeries?
>I didn't say it was bad in very limited situations, such as the study you described. It is reserved for the very best surgeons today -- brain surgery is a very delicate field, even if we are not talking about psychosurgery.
Removal of tumors and cancerous lesions, if possible, are delicate operations that even the best situation can cause some unfortunate brain damage -- but it is a question of whether you want to survive for some period of time from a partially to completely successful surgery that might affect your speech or something else, or whether you elect to have palliative pain care and have a DNR in a hospice which means a quiet death.
Similarly, caudatomy and other very rare surgeries for untreatable OCD, experimental treatment of Parkinsonism and other brain disorders, do occur, but on a rare amount. What you were describing is about 20 surgeries a year.
That's pretty rare considering in a very major hospital you're probably having an elective heart surgery, a partially elective appendectomy (the oldest surgery ever performed commonly and 99.99% successful), an emergency gunshot wound surgery, a wisdom tooth extraction, all on the same day, and perhaps more, in multiple clinics, not all in the same building.
Now the rate of trauma on ER is for ratings -- but the actual medications, procedures, are real, and in fact are regarded by doctors as fairly realistic. Its just you don't have 6 potentially fatal things going on at the same time in the same ER (remember an ER is only one part of a major hospital) on the same day.
> http://neurosurgery.mgh.harvard.edu/Functional/psysurg.htm
>
> Anterior Cingulotomy:
> In over 800 cingulotomies performed at the MGH since 1962, there have been no deaths and no infections. Two acute subdural hematomas occurred early on in the series secondary to laceration of a cortical artery at the time of introduction of ventricular needles but only one patient suffered permanent neurologic impairment. An independent analysis of 34 patients who underwent cingulotomy demonstrated no significant behavioral or intellectual deficits as a result of the cingulate lesions themselves. [Teuber and Corkin] They subsequently evaluated 57 patients before and after cingulotomy and found no evidence of lasting neurological or behavioral deficits after surgery. A comparison of preoperative and post-operative Weschler IQ scores demonstrated significant gains postoperatively. This improvement was greatest in patients with chronic pain and depression but negligible in those with the diagnosis of schizophrenia.
>
> Greetings. lukeds.
>
>
poster:yxibow
thread:702462
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061110/msgs/702757.html