Many surgical revolutions distinguish the history and evolution of surgery. Some are small, others more dominant, but each revolution improves the art and science of surgery. Surgical revolutionaries are indispensable in the conception and completion of any surgical revolution, initiating scientific and technological advances that propel surgical practice forward. Surgical revolutionaries can come in the guises of Lister (antisepsis), Halsted (surgical residency and safe surgery), Cushing (safe brain surgery), Wangensteen (gastrointestinal physiological surgery), Blalock (relief of cyanotic heart disease), Lillehei (open heart surgery), and many others. With the hindsight of history, we can recognize patterns of progress, evaluate means of advancing new ideas, and solidify details of innovative behavior that could lead to new surgical revolutions. This volume examines the following vital questions in detail: What is a surgical revolution and how do we recognize one? Are surgical revolutionaries different? Is there a way to educate new surgical revolutionaries? Can history provide enduring examples of surgical revolutions? Are there different kinds of surgical revolutions? What characterizes a surgical revolution in the context of science and technology? What surgical revolutions are on the horizon?

A pioneering organ transplant surgeon narrates in gripping detail the revolutions that have transformed modern surgery, and the turmoil in medical education and health care reform as new capacities to prolong life and restore health run headlong into unsustainable costs. Tilney’s stage is the famous Boston teaching hospital, Brigham and Women's.

This book describes the 60-year history of the AO Foundation and its impact on the treatment of bone trauma. Originally founded by a group of Swiss surgeons, the AO has since established its osteosynthesis treatment approach to trauma, using surgery and implants, as the global standard. The AO successfully convinced the medical community that surgery of bone trauma was superior to the standard conservative treatment using plaster casts. This new technique meant that patients no longer had to spend long weeks at the hospital in traction, and prevented many disabilities. This book describes the struggle with the medical community, explains how the AO surgeons enlisted the support of an entire industry for their advanced tools and their research and teaching efforts, and details the AO’s evolution into a non-profit foundation that now trains more than 50,000 surgeons, on all continents, every year. The efforts of the AO’s affiliated surgeons, undertaken largely on a volunteer basis and with their own financial resources, serve as a stellar example of social entrepreneurship. Today the AO Foundation numbers over 20,000 surgeon members worldwide, and the industry that emerged to produce related implants and tools employs thousands of skilled staff. Professionals in consulting as well as in healthcare can use this book as a source of successful strategies, and as a blueprint for active social entrepreneurship.

Written by a surgeon with 40 years' experience in practice and instruction, this book provides vital, up-to-date information that explains the strengths and weaknesses of the laparoscopic surgery field to enable potential surgical patients to make the best decisions and choose a surgeon wisely. More than 30 years ago, laparoscopic or "keyhole" surgery suddenly appeared as an operative technique. Laparoscopy quickly grew in the U.S. surgical field, where now more than two million operations annually use the technique. But is the training surgeons receive in laparoscopy sufficient to ensure patient safety? What are the specific situations where laparoscopy is beneficial and justified, and when is it ill-advised due to the additional complexity and risk factors? This is the first book written for general readers—avoiding medical jargon wherever possible—to expose the gritty history and downsides of "minimally invasive surgery." Additionally, it provides the perspective and insights of an esteemed surgeon who was working at the inception of laparoscopy and has a full understanding of this now widely popular procedure across its development and lifespan. Readers will learn about the emergence of laparoscopic techniques in the 1990s, understand how minimally invasive surgery has been a boon to the business of surgery and to patient health and recovery overall, appreciate how the complexity involved in laparoscopic surgery has led to a higher incidence of surgeon "incompetence," and grasp the responsibility of a patient to take steps to assure that the surgeon is qualified before going into the operating room. Examination of eye-opening statistics on the outcomes of laparoscopic procedures documents the high level of capability of most surgeons, as well as the lack of appropriate ability with certain laparoscopic operations in the hands of some surgeons. The author also spells out how informed patients can be prepared to discuss and consider all aspects of an operation—and the surgeon's training and experience—to assure the best outcome for their health.

Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider’s The Invention of Surgery is an in-depth biography of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing developments of anesthesia and antiseptic operating rooms to the “implant revolution” of the twentieth century.The Invention of Surgery is history of surgery that explains this dramatic, world-changing progress and highlights the personalities of the discipline's most dynamic historical figures. It links together the lives of the pioneering scientists who first understood what causes disease and how surgery could powerfully intercede in people’s lives, and then shows how the rise of surgery intersected with many of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last century. And as Schneider argues, surgery has not finished transforming; new technologies are constantly reinventing both the practice of surgery and the nature of the objects we are permanently implanting in our bodies. Schneider considers these latest developments, asking “What’s next?” and analyzing how our conception of surgery has changed alongside our evolving ideas of medicine, technology, and our bodies.

This book charts the history of the worldwide introduction of an operative treatment method for broken bones, osteosynthesis, by a Swiss-based association, called AO. The success of the close cooperation between the AO's surgeons, scientists and manufacturers in establishing a complicated and risky technique as a standard treatment sheds light on the mechanisms of medical innovation at the crossroads of surgery, science and industry and the nature of modern medicine in general.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--