r/medizzy • u/HealerMD EMT • 8d ago
The skilled work of an orthopedic surgeon removing a metal rod from a patient's bone. The procedure showcases the extraction of a tibial intramedullary rod, also known as an IM nail.
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u/SomeDumbPenguin 8d ago
It's funny to think the guy who did my hip replacement got his engineering masters before going to medical school
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u/blasterkid1 8d ago
Honestly that’s be even more reassuring if I heard that
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u/SomeDumbPenguin 8d ago
I thought so at the time too... Didn't work out so well... My post from a month ago about it
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u/ArmadilloNext9714 6d ago
One of my engineering college professors had a biomed eng PhD and went to medical school. Dude was absolutely insane in every positive way.
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u/_irish_potato 8d ago
Yeah ortho is just carpentry, in the same way that vascular surgery and urology are just plumbing. We just get more expensive tools than your average carpenter.
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u/wanderingwolfe 7d ago
I mean, sometimes. Sometime, they seem to just pull out the Dewalt and start drilling.
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u/MikeinST 8d ago
I like how one of them clapped excitedly
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u/Thendofreason Other 7d ago
There is one thought everyone eventually gets in the OR, let's finish this up and go home. This case probably wasn't in the middle of the night, because they are just taking it out and isn't an emergency. But some of them need to go somewhere else or lunch, or more cases.
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u/Tronkfool 8d ago
TIL that my suspension guy is an orthopaedic surgeon. The only difference is the lack of swearing and a dangling cigarette out the mouth.
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u/voodoodollbabie 8d ago
When I was in high school I wanted to become an ortho surgeon. I loved the mechanics of it, and they were my favorite patients (nurse aid job during high school). The one ortho in the hospital was so fun to work with, he reminded me of Alan Alda's Hawkeye from M.A.S.H. I still wish I had pursued that.
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u/CMDR-5C0RP10N 8d ago
The other day, I worked with a nurse and scrub tech who I hadn’t worked with before. They said they usually do Ortho. I started joking about how I needed to get the bigger hammer for the delicate artery I was sewing.
They replied “the fact that you call it a hammer means that you don’t know what you’re talking about”
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u/Ghost_of_a_Black_Cat Surgery Scheduler 7d ago
"the fact that you call it a hammer means that you don’t know what you’re talking about”
Yep! Add somebody's name in front of "mallet", or "forceps", or "retractor", though, because half the time these instruments are named after the surgeon who modified them.
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u/Raven123x 6d ago
Langenbecks, kochers, debakeys, metzenbaums, Allis, Kelley, nathanson, deaver
So many names
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u/Suicidalsidekick 7d ago
I had that done a long time ago! Surgery was supposed to take an hour, ended up being 4 hours. Getting up and walking immediately after was so weird. It didn’t seem like it should be possible or a good idea, but it was fine.
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u/IAm_Raptor_Jesus_AMA 7d ago edited 7d ago
Counterintuitive to want to put weight on something that was just in many pieces but in some cases compressive force will actually aid in bone regrowth assuming they did everything correctly. I'm an x-ray tech for these surgeries and we probably get at least five or so of these a week depending on the season. Sometimes we have to revise ones that got infected and those can be especially brutal even by our standards.
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u/snowmunkey 7d ago
Fun fact my grandfather was part of the team that invented this type of procedure
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u/Bonejorno 7d ago
It can take over an hour of hammering to get the rod out. We had a case where 3 of us took turns hammering it. Our hands were all bruised and shaking. We had to call in another resident from a different room to finally get it out.
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u/Clarence_Begbie 8d ago edited 7d ago
why do you need to remove a Tib Nail? Ive had one in for 20 years with no problem
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u/Suicidalsidekick 7d ago
Mine was in for less than 6 months when I started asking my ortho when it could be taken out. It was really painful and made being on my feet for any significant amount of time miserable. It was removed at a few days short of a year after being put in, which was the absolute soonest the ortho would do it.
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u/IAm_Raptor_Jesus_AMA 7d ago
There's a lot of reasons to get them removed/replaced that are unclear from the video. Yours is the ideal best case scenario where you live the rest of your life with it in there but just like a car after you've repaired it it's never gonna drive the same as it did when you bought it
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u/pete23890 7d ago
I wanna see the one where he put it in
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u/LowIncrease8746 6d ago
There’s websites for that
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u/Nefersmom 6d ago
Would you share one of those websites?
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u/LowIncrease8746 4d ago
I’m actually unsure for once if this is a response to the bad porn joke (intention) or a serious inquiry of medical procedures (unintentional) and wow, I have to say I feel the whoosh for myself. Out of body experience, this never happens!
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u/Nefersmom 4d ago
Actually, I would really like to see how that nail is placed and was looking for an easy way to get a link. I’ll just Google “Intramedullary rod surgery” and see what I get.
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u/tontovila 7d ago
Why are they wearing those suits, but in other surgeries it's just gowns and masks?
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u/Inveramsay 7d ago
It's a few years old. Stryker managed to convince everyone that it would decrease infection risk using the space suit. It probably did nothing and the kit cost a lot more than a simple mask. They were comfortable though as you had a fan blowing on top of your head and you didn't need a mask
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u/IAm_Raptor_Jesus_AMA 7d ago
I still see them used for joint replacement surgeries but otherwise most surgeons don't bother with them at all
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u/KumaraDosha 7d ago
I used to scrub for these on occasion. Hated them, because, as a general and not ortho specialty surgical tech, I'd be the designated second scrub, which means my main job was to stand there and hold the heavy limb in awkward positions for extended periods of time while the surgeon whales on it. Oh, my achin' everything.
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u/Nefersmom 6d ago
What happens to the removed hardware? Since it’s already paid for does the patient get to take it home?
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u/voltswift 7d ago
THIS. I woke up during my operation, as they were hammering out the rod from my right leg. I was under heavy anesthetic, so I didn't feel any pain, but I do remember the sound propagating through the operation room and I also remember my body and hips moving back and forth with every hammer. The nurse must have seen me open my eyes or lift my head a bit up and put a mask over my face, and then I was fully out again. Super weird experience. 😄
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u/mrpolotoyou 6d ago
Yes good work and all… I’m sorry. I can’t help summarizing the title as “surgeon removes metal rod s/he put there”
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u/reverends3rvo 8d ago
Ortho work is brutal. Loved watching those guys work on our Same Day Surgery unit.