Say you’re having major surgery, like installing some new ribs, and half way through the surgery, while your chest is wide open, the surgeon just leaves. Like he just decides to go home and leave you there.

Eventually you’ll wake up, right? You’ll wake up with your chest open, probably in a lot of pain.

Would you die? If you manage to stay calm and just lie there patiently, how long could you survive? Besides something like an infection, what would be the things that could kill you in that situation?

  • Thavron@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Everyone here saying that there would be someone else to stitch you up, I think what OP meant was more of a “everyone in the room vanishes and you’re left alone” type of question.

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.deEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Yep.

      And the result would be varying very much depending on the surgery.

      Open heart surgery? You’re done.

      Knee surgery? A good amount of pain, but maybe fine.

      • nieceandtows@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        ‘Fine’ is a stretch. I don’t think I can sew myself good enough to prevent infection and gangrene.

        • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Assuming all the power and filtration systems stay on, you’d actually be in a pretty sterile environment. If you did your best and put a lot of clean bandages on it, I feel like you have a good chance of avoiding infection.

  • SilentStorms@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    There would be some other doctor in the hospital that would sew you back up, that surgeon would go to jail for a while, you’d be on the news, win massive lawsuit.

  • quixotic120@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I would imagine there is a contingency plan for if the surgeon becomes incapacitated, eg has an aneurysm/heart attack, so they’d probably do whatever that is

    Probably something like palliative care until an on call surgeon can come in and finish out whatever was going on

  • Sal@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I don’t know the full answer, but the surgeon would not be the only doctor in the room. There would at least be an anesthesiologist, and supporting nurses.

  • Atiran@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You know, there are actually a lot of lousy surgeons out there. Usually not at major hospitals, but at very small, rural, or poor hospitals. These hospitals struggle to attract talent, and these surgeons have usually left better positions in disgrace. It’s a match made in hell.

  • Kalkaline @lemmy.oneEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    There would be a resident that could close you up, but maybe skip the discount surgeon with his degree from Hollywood Upstairs Medical School.