Mission 2: Surgeons & Operations

Who is Professor Hallux?

Professor Hallux is a scientist who is really curious about everything to do with the human body!

With the help of Nurse Nanobot he wants to find out everything he can about medicine.

We’re going to be exploring Professor Hallux’s Map of Medicine to help us learn all we can about it!

Have a listen to this clip all about surgery…

What’s a Surgeon?

A surgeon is just a type of doctor that is trained to operate on people.

Embed from Getty Images

There are loads of different types of surgeons and each are specially trained to be really good at doing certain types of operations. Here’s just a few of them…

Cardiothoracic surgeon – These surgeons mainly operate on the heart and lungs
General surgeon – These surgeons focus mainly on operating around your tummy
Neurosurgeon – These surgeons are trained to operate on brains

What is surgery?

Surgery is when specially trained doctors (surgeons) fix something that’s wrong with somebody by operating on them.

Operating often involves cutting into someone with special tools to get to the part of the body that isn’t working right so they can fix it.

Surgery will usually happen in a place called an Operating Theatre.

This is just a very clean room where the doctors perform their surgery on patients. It has to be super clean as they need to make sure that no bacteria or germs get inside the patients body during the operation.

Having your appendix removed

Appendicitis is quite a common operation, you might even know someone in your school who has had this operation.

Lets have a look at how surgery works when someone has appendicitis.

What is appendicitis?

This is when your appendix starts to swell and it can be quite painful.

Embed from Getty Images

Your appendix is part of your digestive system between your tummy and bottom, it looks like a wiggly tube.

The weird thing about the appendix is that no one knows what it actually does! This is pretty weird but the important thing is that we don’t need it so if you get appendicitis then the surgeons can just take your appendix out.

Sometimes it needs to come out quite quickly, if it’s left too long then the appendix can explode inside you!

What happens when you go in to hospital to get your appendix taken out?

First a doctor called an anaesthetist will put you to sleep with some drugs. They either make you breathe the drugs in or they will inject them into you. This is so you can’t feel the surgery as it’s happening.

Next the doctors will take you to the operating theatre where the operation will happen.

The anaesthetist will stay with you the whole time to make sure you’re okay and that you stay asleep throughout the surgery.

The doctor actually doing the surgery on you will probably be a General Surgeon.

The surgeon will then cut into you using some of their special tools, these tools are all super clean to make sure no germs get into your body during the surgery.

Then the surgeon will remove your appendix and stitch you back up.

When you wake up you should be all better with just a scar from where the surgeon cut into you. You might feel a little bit sick when you wake up but this is just the effect of the drugs they used to put you to sleep wearing off.

Once the doctors are happy that you’re okay then you can go home!

In the operating theatre

Here are some of the things you might see in the operating theatre…

Operating table

Embed from Getty Images

This is the table the person being operated on lies on while the operation is happening.

Machines that go ping

Embed from Getty Images

There are lots of machines in an operating theatre to make sure everything is okay. One of them will be a heart monitor like in the picture above. This monitors the patients heart during the operation to make sure they are okay throughout the operation.

Scalpel

Embed from Getty Images

This is just like a really sharp knife. It’s what the surgeon uses to cut into the patient so they can operate on them.

Operating lights

Embed from Getty Images

These are huge lights that are above the patient being operated on. Surgeons need these lights so that they can see what they’re doing during the operation.