How to establish a face transplant team

March 3, 2015- Interviewed by Steven E. Greer, MD

In Part 2 of our interview with Eduardo Rodriguez, MD, DDS, Chairman of Plastic Surgery at NYU, he discusses the new face transplant team that he has assembled, preparing for their first case.

Increasing rates of double mastectomies in early stage breast cancer

Interviewed by Steven E. Greer, MD

David P. Winchester MD, Medical Director of Cancer Programs for the American College of Surgeons, discusses recent data showing a more than a 100% increase in the rate that young women with early Read more »

Current surgical weight loss therapies

January 24, 2014- Interviewed by Steven E. Greer, MD

Erik Dutson, MD, weight loss surgeon at UCLA, explains why his medical center does not implant the Lap-Band, and how the “sleeve” bypass is the main procedure of choice now for weight loss surgery.

I just shook hands with a face transplant patient and did not know it

January 21, 2015- By Steven E. Greer, MD

I was in the process of being given a personal tour of the new facilities of the NYU Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery when the doctor interrupted and introduced me to a patient. The adult male was Read more »

Atul Gawande’s surgical checklist fails in real world study

March 15, 2014- By Steven E. Greer, MD

In 2009, Atul Gawande, MD, MPH and his large international team published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) an observational study that showed a significant reduction of death and “complications” after non-cardiac surgery. The World Health Organization (WHO) created the checklist used in the NEJM paper. After this non-randomized, non-controlled, observational study was published, entire nations adopted the surgical checklist system.

Now, in 2014, a population study drawing from Ontario surgical patient data, published in the NEJM, showed no significant benefit from the widespread adoption of the same WHO surgical safety checklist that Dr. Gawande popularized. This study was also observational, but it was stronger than the 2009 Gawande study in that it included the entire population within a region.

What went wrong? Read more »

Medical and surgical offices need to adopt Apple Pay ASAP

October 21, 2014- By Steven E. Greer

Another huge credit card data security hack was in the news today. Read more »

Reliable gun violence statistics

February 12, 2013 By Steven E. Greer, MD

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut massacre of 20 first graders and six brave adults, the debate over gun control is the main topic of the news. Consequently, both sides of the debate are using statistics to support their arguments. However, gun violence statistics are quite often inappropriately cited by untrained “pundits” or lobbyists.

A summary of some of the most important evidence and data: Read more »

Double arm transplantation

Gerald Brandacher, MD, Scientific Director of the  Composite Tissue Allotransplantation (Reconstructive Transplant) Program at Johns Hopkins discusses the first double arm transplant.

Will clinical excellence finally be rewarded under ACO’s?

March 21^st, 2011

Most of the respected leaders in medicine are indeed also good clinicians. However, their clinical skills were not the most important quality that allowed them to achieve tenured Professor, Chief, or Chair status. The current academic medical center paradigm rewards journal publications, rain-making NIH grant ability, and fee-for-service revenue generation above clinical skills.

To use surgery as an example, in the current fee-for-service reimbursement systems, Read more »

The stages of wound healing in time lapse

(Best viewed in full screen 1080iHD)

Surgery residents might find it interesting to watch this time lapse video of wound healing and correlate it with the basic science chapters in all text books. Note the peripheral radial contraction patterns of the intact skin caused by fibroblasts migrating and pulling using integrin molecules, the color changes of the granulation tissue, the migration of the epithelial cells inward, the final reduction in erythema after the epithelium covers the granulation tissue, etc.

For a thorough discussion of wound healing biology that is on display in the video, refer to this chapter from The Handbook of Plastic Surgery edited by Greer et al