Surgical assistant training
Philip K Swartz - 1960-61 - South Pole Station - Antarcticans Database Project more

Back to thumbnails   Previous     Next   

The year before me, I am told, the doctor on the base operated on someone for appendicitis, never finding the appendix, and evidently the patient survived. He left a large pile of used OR linen that needed washing/sterilizing, etc. I was concerned that should I ever need any surgical assisting I would have to train some, so I picked out some of the men who most likely would not be needed in such an emergency and we had a little training session in sterile technique. I had heard of making a mixture of oil and charcoal and using this to teach people how to do a surgical scrub. This is Peterson doing his test and is nearly at the end of 10 minutes of scrubbing! Note the mess on the sink counter. After this, one of the men wanted a very small piece of gravel chronically imbedded near his elbow removed - the sort of thing that could be done in a doctor's office in about 15 minutes - and we turned that into a full-scale surgical procedure. It took about an hour and a half and it took me two days to do all the linen afterwards.

Pictures from Philip K Swartz, overwinter, South Pole, 60-61