Manual Of Common Bedside Surgical Procedures

PREFACE (FIRST EDITION)
As the care of patients continues to become more complex and technologically oriented, there has been an increase in the number of invasive monitoring, diagnostic, and therapeutic procedures performed at the bedside. In many situations, these procedures are performed by surgical house officers on an elective and sometimes emergent basis. Although surgical residents will acquire the skills to perform the procedures by experience and “hands-onâ€‌ instruction, a manual detailing and carefully illustrating the many diverse procedures would be beneficial. Currently, techniques for performing some bedside procedures can be found in subspecialty texts, but there is no convenient manual solely devoted to bedside procedures including techniques from a variety of medical fields.
Manual of Common Bedside Surgical Procedures is a useful, transportable, and fully illustrated text that attempts to accomplish this goal. The chapters on airway management and arterial/venous access are crucial to all house officers. Cardiothoracic, abdominal, and needle biopsy procedure chapters are especially useful to surgical residents. The chapters covering neurosurgical, urologic, plastic surgical, and orthopedic procedures can serve as quick references for intermittently performed procedures. Junior residents and medical students will find this entire manual to be a useful tool while first learning these procedures.
Manual of Common Bedside Surgical Procedures is edited by two current and one former Halsted resident. The chapters are written by the house officers of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, including Halsted surgical residents. The technical aspects of and the systematic approach to performing bedside procedures have been passed down from one resident to another over the years. By having residents as authors, the individuals actually performing these techniques are imparting important, first-hand knowledge targeted to other residents who will be performing these tasks. It was the dedication of these residents that made this book possible.
This text in no way aims to replace the “hands-onâ€‌ instruction and experience needed to be accumulated by an individual prior to performing bedside procedures. No one should attempt a technique if they do not have adequate experience or supervision. Finally, the techniques described in this manual reflect the experience of the chapter authors, and may need to be be modified depending on each individual resident and each patient.
H. C.
J. E. S.
K. D. L