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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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THE BHP WIRE —
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before specializing in surgery.
In some countries and jurisdictions, the title of 'surgeon' is restricted to maintain the integrity of the craft group in the medical profession. A specialist regarded as a legally recognized surgeon includes podiatry, dentistry, and veterinary medicine. It is estimated that surgeons perform over 300 million surgical procedures globally each year.[1][2]
The first person to document a surgery was the 6th century BC Indian physician-surgeon, Sushruta. He specialized in cosmetic plastic surgery and even documented an open rhinoplasty procedure.[3] His magnum opus Suśruta-saṃhitā is one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine and is considered a foundational text of both Ayurveda and surgery. The treatise addresses all aspects of general medicine, but the translator G. D. Singhal dubbed Sushruta "the father of surgical intervention" on account of the extraordinarily accurate and detailed accounts of surgery to be found in the work.[4]
After the eventual decline of the Sushruta School of Medicine in India, surgery was largely ignored until the Islamic Golden Age surgeon Al-Zahrawi (936–1013) re-established surgery as an effective medical practice. He is considered the greatest medieval surgeon to have appeared from the Islamic World, and has also been described as the father of surgery.[5] His greatest contribution to medicine is the Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices.[6] He was the first physician to describe an ectopic pregnancy, and the first physician to identify the hereditary nature of haemophilia.[7]
His pioneering contributions to the field of surgical procedures and instruments had an enormous impact on surgery but it was not until the 18th century that surgery emerged as a distinct medical discipline in England.[7]
In Europe, surgery was mostly associated with barber-surgeons who also used their hair-cutting tools to undertake surgical procedures, often at the battlefield and also for their employers.[8] With advances in medicine and physiology, the professions of barbers and surgeons diverged; by the 19th century barber-surgeons had virtually disappeared, and surgeons were almost invariably qualified doctors who had specialized in surgery. Surgeon continued, however, to be used as the title for military medical officers until the end of the 19th century, and the title of Surgeon General continues to exist for both senior military medical officers and senior government public health officers.
In 1950, the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS) in London began to offer surgeons a formal status via RCS membership. The title Mister became a badge of honour, and today, in many Commonwealth countries, a qualified doctor who, after at least four years' training, obtains a surgical qualification (formerly Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, but now also Member of the Royal College of Surgeons or a number of other diplomas) is given the honour of being allowed to revert to calling themselves Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms in the course of their professional practice, but this time the meaning is different. It is sometimes assumed that the change of title implies consultant status (and some mistakenly think non-surgical consultants are Mr too), but the length of postgraduate medical training outside North America is such that a qualified surgeon may be years away from obtaining such a post: many doctors previously obtained these qualifications in the senior house officer grade, and remained in that grade when they began sub-speciality training. The distinction of Mr (etc.) is also used by surgeons in the Republic of Ireland, some states of Australia, Barbados, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and some other Commonwealth countries.[9] In August 2021, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons announced that it was advocating for this practice to be phased out and began encouraging the use of the gender neutral title Dr or appropriate academic titles such as Professor.[10]
The reason for the otherwise undistinguished title of "mister" is historical. In the 18th century only physicians, with an MD degree, were entitled to call themselves "doctor". Most surgeons did not have a degree—in the Middle Ages they were also barbers, expert users of cutting tools—and were considered inferior and subordinate to physicians; "Mr" was initially a lower honorific, but came to be a badge of honour.[11]
In many English-speaking countries the military title of surgeon is applied to any medical practitioner, due to the historical evolution of the term. The US Army Medical Corps retains various surgeon United States military occupation codes in the ranks of officer pay grades, for military personnel dedicated to performing surgery on wounded soldiers.
Some physicians who are general practitioners or specialists in family medicine or emergency medicine may perform limited ranges of minor, common, or emergency surgery. Anesthesia often accompanies surgery, and anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists may oversee this aspect of surgery. Surgeon's assistant, surgical nurses, surgical technologists are trained professionals who support surgeons.
In the United States, the Department of Labor description of a surgeon is "a physician who treats diseases, injuries, and deformities by invasive, minimally-invasive, or non-invasive surgical methods, such as using instruments, appliances, or by manual manipulation".[12]
Around the world, the array of 'surgical' pathology that a surgeon manages does not always require surgical methods. For example, surgeons treat diverticulitis conservatively using antibiotics and bowel rest. In some cases of small bowel obstruction, particularly where a patient has had previous abdominal surgery, the surgeon treats the patient with fluid resuscitation, nasogastric decompression of the stomach, which gives rise to resolution of the intestinal obstruction in cases where adhesions are the aetiology of the obstruction. The same is true for other craft groups in surgery.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before specializing in surgery. In some countries and jurisdictions, the title of 'surgeon' is restricted to maintain the integrity of the craft group in the medical profession. A specialist regarded as a legally recognized surgeon includes podiatry, dentistry, and veterinary medicine. It is estimated that surgeons perform over 300 million surgical procedures globally each year.
A flight surgeon is a medical officer practicing in the clinical field of aviation medicine, which is also occasionally known as flight surgery. Flight surgeons are medical doctors who serve as the primary care physicians for a variety of military aviation personnel, including pilots, flight officers, navigators, astronauts, missile combat crews, air traffic controllers, UAV operators and other aircrew members, both officer and enlisted. Aviation medicine is essentially a form of occupational medicine, and flight surgeons are tasked with the responsibility of maintaining medical standards, especially those that apply to those on flying, controlling or airborne status. In some jurisdictions, such as the U.S military, flight surgeons are trained to fill general public health and occupational and preventive medicine roles, and only infrequently perform surgery in an operating theater sense. Flight surgeons are not required to be rated or licensed pilots. They may be called upon to provide medical consultation as members of an investigation board into a military or aviation or spaceflight mishap. Occasionally, they may serve to provide in-flight care to patients being evacuated via aeromedical evacuation. The civilian equivalent of the flight surgeon is the Aviation Medical Examiner (AME). Some civilian AMEs have training similar to that of military flight surgeons, and some are retired military and reservist flight surgeons.
John Hunter (13 February 1728 – 16 October 1793) was a Scottish surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific methods in medicine. He was a teacher of, and collaborator with, Edward Jenner, pioneer of the smallpox vaccine. His wife, Anne Hunter (née Home), was a poet, some of whose poems were set to music by Joseph Haydn. He learned anatomy by assisting his elder brother William with dissections in William's anatomy school in Central London, starting in 1748, and quickly became an expert in anatomy. He spent some years as an Army surgeon, worked with the dentist James Spence conducting tooth transplants, and in 1764 set up his own anatomy school in London. He built up a collection of living animals whose skeletons and other organs he prepared as anatomical specimens, eventually amassing nearly 14,000 preparations demonstrating the anatomy of humans and other vertebrates, including 3,000+ animals. Hunter became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1787. The Hunterian Society of London was named in his honour, and the Hunterian Museum in London preserves his name and his collection of anatomical specimens.
James Barry (born Margaret Anne Bulkley, or Bulkeley; c. 1789 – 25 July 1865) was a military surgeon in the British Army. Originally from the city of Cork in Ireland, Barry obtained a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, then served first in Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently in many parts of the British Empire. Before retirement, Barry had risen to the rank of Inspector General (equivalent to Brigadier) in charge of military hospitals, the second-highest medical office in the British Army. He improved conditions not only for wounded soldiers, but also for the native inhabitants. Barry performed the first recorded caesarean section by a European in Africa in which both the mother and child survived the surgery. Barry, who lived his entire adult life as a man, was named Margaret Anne at birth and was known as female in childhood. Barry lived as a man in both public and private life, at least in part, in order to be accepted as a university student, and to pursue a career as a surgeon. His anatomy became known to the public and to military colleagues only after his death.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.
