Robert Liston FRCSE, FRCS, FRS (28 October 1794 – 7 December 1847) was a British surgeon. Liston was noted for his speed and skill in an era prior to anaesthetics, when speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival.
Popularly known today for his bravura 30-second amputations and operations and its apocryphal 300 percent mortality (the patient, the assistant who lost a finger, and a bystander who died from shock from nearly being sliced by his errant scalpel), Liston had a substantive impact on surgical technique in his use of ...
(Liston operated so fast that he once accidentally amputated an assistant's fingers along with a patient's leg, according to Hollingham. The patient and the assistant both died of sepsis, and a spectator reportedly died of shock, resulting in the only known procedure with a 300% mortality.)”
The leg was amputated in under 2 and a half minutes, but in his haste, Liston also slashed through the coat tails of a spectator, who was so terrified by the experience that he dropped dead from terror on the spot.
The most protracted operation reported lasted for 96 hours and was performed on 4-8 February 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, USA on Mrs Gertrude Levandowski (USA) for the removal of an ovarian cyst. During the operation her weight fell 280 kg (616 lb / 44 st) to 140 kg (308 lb / 22 st).
Q: What was the longest operation ever? A: Actually, the longest surgery on record occurred in 2001 and lasted more than four straight days—103 hours to be exact. A team of 20 doctors at Singapore General Hospital worked in shifts to separate Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, 11-month-old twins conjoined at the head.
Liston's most famous case
Amputated the leg in under 2 1⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene).
Robert Liston (1794-1847) held a (well-earned) reputation as the fastest surgeon of his time. One contemporary recalled of Liston: “It is told that when he amputated, the gleam of his knife was followed so instantaneously by the sound of the bone being sawn as to make the two actions appear almost simultaneous” [7].
Dr. Robert Liston (1794 -1847) Scottish surgeon was well known for his speed; a skill that earned him the nickname 'the fastest knife'. He was admired by his colleagues as well due to his fantastic mortality rate- only one-tenth of his patients died.
Bariatric Surgery Among the Safest Surgical Procedures
While any surgical procedure has risks, bariatric surgery has been found to be one of the safest surgeries to undergo. It is considered as safe or more safe when compared to other elective surgeries.
Kevorkian said that he assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He was convicted of murder in 1999 and was often portrayed in the media with the name of "Dr. Death".
Robert Liston was known as the fastest knife in the west. He developed his technique over time, before anesthesia. Although this sounds crazy, it was for an excellent reason. The average surgeon would lose about 1 in 4 patients during operations as the pain and shock would kill.
The forgotten surgeon (Al-Zahrawi) his full name was Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al- 'Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari (936-1013). He was born in Medina Azahara, Al-Andalus (near present-day Córdoba, Spain). He as has been also describe as the father of surgery.
Akrit Jaswal performed surgery on 19th November 2000 at the age of 7 and became the youngest surgeon in the world.
In general, minimally invasive surgery is associated with less pain, a shorter hospital stay and fewer complications. Laparoscopy — surgery done through one or more small incisions, using small tubes and tiny cameras and surgical instruments — was one of the first types of minimally invasive surgery.
A 93-year-old doctor in Kyrgyzstan has been named the world's longest working surgeon after 67 years in the operating theatre.
Cytoreductive Surgery Procedure
Cytoreduction is a complex procedure that generally lasts 10 to 12 hours. Because this mesothelioma surgery is so lengthy, patients are sometimes admitted to the hospital a day before the surgery.