"nurse, pass me the diathermy"
"sorry doctor, the what??"Just something i'd like to clarify. A lot of non-medicos still think scalpels are what surgeons use to do most of the work in a surgery. As far as i've observed, scalpels are still commonly used to cut thru the skin. But for the rest of the surgery, it steps aside and lets the diathermy do the bulk of the cutting.
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Diathermy's been around for a few decades. It's the use of high frequency electric current to produce heat. The heat is directed from the "pencil" or "probe" to cut thru tissue or to produce coagulation (clotting). The patient's body forms part of the electrical circuit.
The thing with diathermy's that when cutting thru certain types of tissue, the burning causes a lot of smoke and sometimes an unpleasant odour. I noticed this especially when i assisted in some surgeries (escarectomies) for burns on my elective in China. The smell produced by burning fat is quite...um, distinct.
ok, that's it for the tutorial on diathermy.
um... i hope this post won't attract too many ppl googling for the word "diathermy".
posted by zhinger @ 11:53 am
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