Twitter followers saw photos, learned about bypasses in real time, but ethical questions remain
Surgeons at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre brought Twitter followers into their operating room today while performing a coronary artery bypass graft on a 57-year-old man to raise awareness about heart issues.
The hospital’s social media team tweeted facts, photos and videos of the coronary artery bypass graft, also known as CABG, on Thursday. They are also provided information about preventing heart disease by quitting smoking, exercising and eating better.
Bypass surgery is done to improve blood flow to the heart, typically after arteries have become blocked with plaque due to coronary artery disease. Surgeons remove a healthy blood vessel — often from the leg —and attach it to the blocked artery.
Sunnybrook likened it to a “road detour” around blocked arteries, with the aim of increasing blood flow to the heart.
The hospital has said the patient has given permission and referred to him by his first name, Lou.
At noon, the hospital said the grafts were complete, the heart had resumed beating successfully and Lou was off bypass. A video showed surgeons placing chest tubes to prevent blood from putting pressure on the heart during recovery. At 1 p.m., they closed his chest to complete the surgery successfully — a birthday gift for him.
Earlier, Lou was connected to a bypass, or “heart-lung,” machine to keep oxygenated blood pumping through his body during the procedure, hospital tweets said.
A surgical photo showed a radial artery harvested from his left arm, one of the patient’s two bypass grafts.
“Obviously we can’t bring the public into the operating room, so it’s nice to be able to broadcast what we do,” Dr. Gideon Cohen, Sunnybrook’s chief of cardiac surgery, said in a post-surgery interview with CBC News. “This is an engaging way of keeping the public informed.”
On Twitter, the surgical team was asked about what they feel like during the four hours at the operating table, where they listened to music on a radio.
“You don’t notice it at the time of the operation, but when you get home you feel pretty wiped,” Cohen said. “So it’s probably that kind of subconscious stress that gets to you at the end of the day.”
Source: cbc
A new study by Indian origin researcher has suggested that diabetic people have a 30 percent less chance of dying if they undergo coronary artery bypass surgery rather than opening the artery through angioplasty and inserting a stent.