Surgery

Host: Alfred Bove, MD

Guest: Charles Love, MD

Defibrillator and pacemaker leads can be challenging to remove or replace, even when the procedure is performed by an experienced cardiologist. Infection, manufacturer recall and device malfunction are all reasons a lead might require extraction. How can we balance the risks of the procedure with the potential harms of leaving a lead implanted? Dr. Charles Love, professor of clinical medicine in the division of cardiovascular medicine and director of Cardiac Rhythm Device Services at Ohio State University Medical Center, discusses ways to manage the risks of lead extraction with host Dr. Alfred Bove.

Host: Lisa Dandrea Lenell, PA-C, MPAS, MBA

Guest: Kevin Chung, MD

Guest: Charles Thompson, PA-C, RN

The U.S. Army Burn Center at Brooke Army Medical Center, Ft. Sam Houston Texas, is one of the five busiest burn units in the country. These patients are out of the ordinary. They are military men and women who have been burned over at least 20 percent of their body while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Kevin Chung an intensivist at the unit and PA Charles Thompson join host Lisa Dandrea Lenell to talk about the process of moving patients from the battlefield to the burn unit, how burn wounds are treated and the emotional toll that it takes on the medical professionals treating these patients.

Host: Lisa Dandrea Lenell, PA-C, MPAS, MBA

Guest: Kevin Chung, MD

Guest: Charles Thompson, PA-C, RN

It takes a team of specialists, social workers, PAs, nurses and therapists to care for the burn patients at the US Army Burn Unit in Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Every day more than 30 medical professionals make rounds checking on the critically injured at the unit. Dr. Kevin Chung, intensivist at the burn center, and PA Charles Thompson explain to host Lisa Dandrea Lenell the mutli-disciplinary team approach that is used to treat more than 500 patients a year.

Host: Martin Samuels, MD

Guest: Thomas Starzl, MD, PhD

Now in his 80s, Dr. Thomas E. Starzl is actively pursing his latest research interests and gives no indication of slowing down. He is widely known as the father of transplantation. But what is not widely known is that his early work was in neurophysiology. What made him choose surgery? What was it like when he was doing his pioneering transplantation work? What is he researching now? Host Dr. Martin Samuels and Dr. Thomas Starzl discuss.

Host: Lee Freedman, MD

Guest: Donald O'Rourke, MD

Awake craniotomy offers many advantages to brain tumor surgery, since it allows neurosurgeons to maximize surgical resection, while minimizing neurologic risks. Is this procedure well tolerated by most patients? What role does MRI mapping play in awake craniotomy? Dr. Donald O'Rourke, associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania Neurological Institute and the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine, discusses the exciting advances being made with awake craniotomy with host Dr. Lee Freedman.

Produced in Cooperation with

Host: Mark Nolan Hill, MD

Guest: John Whapham, MD, MS

Somewhere in between the fields of neurology and neurosurgery, we find physicians using less invasive techniques to perform procedures that could be classified as endovascular neurosurgery, or interventional neuroradiology, or more plainly, as neurology practiced through catheters. Dr. John Whapham, a neurointerventionalist and an assistant professor in the departments of neurology and neurological surgery at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, explains how this area of practice has evolved in recent years, and previews what's in store for the future of this discipline, blending expertise across multiple specialties. Dr. Mark Nolan Hill hosts.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD

Guest: Subodh Kumar Singh, MD

The Oscar-winning documentary film Smile Pinki depicts a little girl who undergoes a cleft palate operation, and experiences a very changed life as a result. Host Dr. Maurice Pickard welcomes Pinki’s surgeon, Dr. Subodh Kumar-Singh, director and chief of plastic surgery at GS Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital in Varanasi, India. Dr. Kumar-Singh also works with the non-profit organization Smile Train, which provides cleft surgeries to underserved children worldwide. Tune in to learn more about the significant problem of cleft lip and palate in India, and worldwide.

Host: Mark Nolan Hill, MD

Guest: Monica Morrow, MD

As we expand the scope of breast-conserving surgery for patients with breast cancer, have we focused too much on the cosmetic results, to the potential detriment of the oncologic outcome? It's a question that concerns some in the field of breast surgery, who believe the evidence to establish clinical efficacy for certain procedures is not yet in. Dr. Monica Morrow, chief of the breast service in the department of surgery, and the Anne Burnett Windfohr Chair of Clinical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, joins host Dr. Mark Nolan Hill to explore how we can address the potential pitfalls of emphasizing cosmesis in breast-conserving surgery while maintaining the sound principles of oncologic surgery.

Host: Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP

Guest: Elvira Lang, MD

We've known anecdotally that simply waiting for the results of a tumor biopsy can be as stressful as coping with an unfavorable diagnosis itself. There is even some evidence to suggest that this stressful waiting period may subsequently impact the treatment of those patients who are found to have cancer. How do we explain this hypothesis? Further, how can we ease the anxiety of those patients awaiting cancer test results, and can we shorten the time patients must wait for their diagnosis? Host Dr. Jennifer Shu explores these key issues in the diagnostic process with Dr. Elvira Lang, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, and an interventional radiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Host: Bruce Japsen

Guest: Marc Hedrick, MD

Many view the promise of stem cells as something far off in the distance, but these regenerative cells are nearing commercialization in the area of cosmetic and plastic surgery, particularly for women who are in need of reconstructive breast surgery. Dr. Marc Hedrick, president of San Diego based Cytori Therapeutics, tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen about a commercialized device in Europe that uses adult stem cells derived from fat as a way to reconstruct breasts following surgery. Clinical trials may begin in the US in the next year.