What Do Cardiothoracic Surgeons Do?
There are many different kinds of doctors in the medical field, but one of the most honored positions are heart surgeons. Every day they have the chance to save lives by performing surgery on the main center of everyone's body: the heart. Arguably, one of the most complicated and demanding heart surgeons are cardiothoracic surgeons. One of the kinds of surgeons is a cardiothoracic surgeon. Let's break that word down a little bit. "Cardiovascular" refers to the heart and great vessels around the heart and "thoracic" is a form of the word "thorax" which refers to the chest so a cardiothoracic surgeon job is one where the surgeon works on the heart and chest cavity. Cardiothoracic surgeon jobs are jobs that are usually performed to treat heart disease, but it can also include heart transplants. The earliest recorded date of heart surgery was in the 19th century but the first one without any complications took place on September 7, 1896 and was performed by Dr. Ludwig Rehn. There are four main kinds of cardiac surgery. Operations under hypothermia is when the heart is stopped and drained of all its blood before being worked on. The first time this surgery was performed and completed without any malfunctions was September 2, 1952 and in 1953, this same surgery was done under local anesthesia. Open heart surgery is exactly what it sounds like: the chest is cut open and the heart is operated on. The heart itself may or may not be cut open depending on what is being done to it. Modern beating-heart surgery is when the heart is beating as it is being operated on, but it is stabilized so that it is almost a still work area. Some people believe this kind of surgery leads to less complications afterwards as well as better recovery, but those results are speculation at this point and not fact. Finally, minimally invasive surgery is where a machine controlled by a heart surgeon is used to perform the surgery. This is a safer form of surgery as the incision does not need to be big enough for human hands to get into, but simply big enough for the robot to get into. Clearly, cardiothoracic surgeon jobs are difficult and highly complicated jobs, but the field is always in need so if this interests you, look into developing the skills to do this job and possibly save someone's life. |
