The title of the text is called “Color-coded surgery” and this article/presentation was presented in 2011 at a Ted Talk. Dr. Quyen Nguyen is an Otolaryngologist who experts surgery. She “is a board-certified head and neck surgeon who specializes in neurotology, or the management of diseases of the inner ear, temporal bone, and skull base, including tumors and other conditions.
Her main focus is in cochlear implants for hearing restoration and facial nerve surgery”. (UC San Diego of Health). She also experts in medical and surgical treatments related to the ear. “As a professor in the Department of Surgery, she trains surgeons during their fellowship at UC San Diego School of Medicine.” (UC San Diego of Health)
The main point about this text is color coded surgery and how it helps us learn anatomy, and it makes it easier to learn because of the different colors. The human body has colors and textures that makes us distinguish which is what. “Nerves are yellow, arteries are red, veins are blue.” said Dr. Nguyen. I feel like this is the main point of the Ted Talk because it tells us that color coded surgery is important to know and understand, and that it may not be easy at some points in the surgery.
For example, When a surgeon has a real living patient on the table, and the surgeons discover that the patient has “cancer” they can catch it right away on time by locating that cancers color and looking at how much it has grown throughout the time, color makes it simple by locating thing, without any color in the human body we won’t tell what kind of disease we have in the human body or if we are okay.
A CT scan can detect cancer by finding something strange that is not supposed to be there, the cancers color on the CT scan would show as black, and the surgeons would know right away on the X-ray. “Well if cancer can be caught early, enough such that someone can have their cancer taken out, excised with surgery, I don’t care if it has this gene or that gene, or if it has this protein or that protein, it’s in the jar. It’s done, it’s out, you’re cured of cancer.” (02:17, last sentence, Dr. Nguyen).
Dr. Nguyen is right when she stated that if the cancer is detected early enough, that the patient can be cured from cancer and have a successful surgery, but still has risks of the cancer coming back, so surgeons ask the patient if they want them to perform surgery on them to get the cancer out on time. “But then we actually don’t know that it’s all out.” (3:19, 6th sentence, Dr. Nguyen).
Some parts of cancer are not shown in CT scans because the cancer hides and begins to grow again because surgeons think that everything is put but they’re not sure of it, and to check, that is when blood tests and chemo become involved. “And this whole process: ‘Okay you’re done. We think the entire tumor is out.’ But very often several days later, the patient’s gone home, we get a phone call: ‘I’m sorry, once we looked at the final pathology, once we looked at the final specimen, we actually found that there’s a couple other spots where the margins are positive.
There’s still cancer in your patient.’.” (04:26, 1st sentence). This phrase is not a good thing to say to the patient when they say “we think that the entire tumor is out”. That makes the patients feel worried that there is still a piece of cancer inside of them. The surgeons feel bad to announce that to the patient because it’s a devastating moment, so its facing fears and fears towards the surgeons and patients by performing another surgery.
Dr. Quyen Nguyen starts to explain to the audience what color coded surgery is, and she goes in more in depth by talking more about it and what the outcomes of surgery is. She begins to describe her life as a surgeon, and the obstacles she goes through while performing, everything she discusses goes to all the surgeons and not just herself. She also describes the inside of an OR room and the technologies. (operation room) Basically, the life of a surgeon.
I think that the intended audience are the surgeons in this world that go through this while saving a humans life, and have their life in their own hands at risk. Surgeons deal with risks like this, especially when they are not so sure about removing a tumor, and some are nowhere to be seen. Surgeons want to figure out a way on how to detect cancer easily without trying to hit a nerve in the human body. Also, want to come up with a technology that helps them.
Honestly, I did enjoy reading this text/Ted Talk because health related subjects interest me whether its surgery, nursing, or the studies of the human body. Mainly, I liked this text because it talked about how to “excise cancer” (11:23) and how to take the cancer out fully without bits of pieces still inside the patient, oncologist are the ones who studies cancer and tumors. They do all the studying to help surgeons, although oncologists don’t do surgery is the only difference. I also liked that new technology is being invented and it’ll be easier to save lives and make them live longer.
In surgery, surgeons have to be extremely careful on what to cut and not make any mistakes that will put the patient at risk. Technology such as CT and MRI scans are important to medical history to check the patient from the inside and to examine what the situation is such as cancer, tumors, lymph nodes etc. Surgeons want to figure out a way on how to make it easier to find a tumor that cannot be seen while performing surgery because finding it isn’t so easy, also wanting to increase their technology even more, by detecting small tumors that are either inside deep in between the human brain.
Doctors and surgeons are figuring out a way to color code when going into an MRI or CT scan and make it more noticeable to spot. Color-coded surgery has led to become to be a thing around the globe and has been published in “The National Academy of Sciences” and in Nature Biotechnology. Technology advances each day that goes by and is super helpful, especially this technology which is safe and curable for everyone because all it is, is just a type of florescent light that help surgeons see different bumps and spots cleary and make sure its nothing dangerous.
