As A Surgeon, What Is The Most Shocking Thing You Ever Saw After Opening Somebody Up?

This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Boris Ezomo, Surgeon who still knows his basic medicine



“As a surgeon, what is the most shocking thing you ever saw after opening somebody up?”

Thanks for asking, it seems a lot of people are waiting for an answer.

Warning : Graphic images taken off the web and not of any particular patient.

This is a difficult question to answer because there is little left to surprise the surgeon before he starts the surgery. Investigations and imaging like the X-rays, CT scans and MRIs had removed all elements of surprise.

If you think that we would open up and be shocked to find a pair of scissors forgotten from the last surgery, it can never happen again. First it is almost impossible to forget instruments because of the vigorous systemic checks we have during surgery. Even if it did happen, everything including the swabs we use are marked to be see on X-ray (the blue line is seen on the X-Ray while the swab itself is not). No other type of swab is allowed near the patient.




So as you can see, you are no longer left anything to be surprised about.

The closest to what people are expecting to hear that happened to me was as a medical student in Nigeria. The cadavers we use for anatomy are given to us by the prisons. They are either executed prisoners or those who died in prison and were not claimed. So dissecting the stomach of our subject, we found $50 equivalent wrapped in plastic in the stomach. I guess that prisoner was thinking that he can take the money with him, but ended up buying a round of drinks for a bunch of medical students.

In medical practice, we can get surprised by the extent of a condition that we already know is there.

In my case it was a sad story of a 14-year-old girl. She was admitted under paediatrics for fever. Where was the fever coming from? We had no clue. The lass had no other symptoms. Nothing. She was fighting an infection but it wasn’t clear where.

On the third day something like this appeared



We, the Orthopaedics, were called for it. It was Necrotizing fasciitis.

This is a monster of infections. It infects underneath the skin and rapidly spreads. Only then does the skin show any signs.

The treatment is nasty. Cut away all tissue and skin that is dead. It is easy to know which is dead. It does not bleed.

So we wheeled her to theatre feeling sorry for her, she is going to lose about 8 cm of skin.

We started cutting and cutting, more and more. Even the skin that looked all right was dead. At the end we left her with something like this



We did not expect it had spread that much.

After years of treatment and skin grafts, I saw her again when she developed another fever and ran to us in a panic, and I can not blame her. This time there was no problem but I got a chance to see the outcome. It was something like this



A beautiful young lady never to wear bikinis or skirts.

I can still remember slicing away centimeter by centimeter thinking, “Bleed, for God’s sake, bleed!”

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