COTW: Operating Together

John and I have had a few occasions to operate together, which is a unique opportunity for a General Surgeon and an Ophthalmologist. On one such case, an older gentleman came in having been stabbed through the eye and into the brain. He didn't come into the hospital for a few weeks until he had persistent pus coming from around his eye. He also had headaches and fevers. So we sent him 3 hours away to get a CT scan of his head, and he came back with a scan which showed an abscess in his brain, as well as around his eye.


So John and I did a tag team operation. I started by drilling a 3/4" hole in his head around where the abscess was. Then Rachel's department lent us a gynecologic ultrasound probe (thus involving three McCropder doctors in this operation) to look through the hole and locate the abscess. Probing a needle into the abscess under ultrasound guidance, I drained a few cc's of pus. After I closed up his head, John did some fancy eye exposure to get the pus out from around his eye. This is how he looked after we finished:

He did well after the operation and some IV antibiotics. We look forward to our next combination case.