Kudos to technology! A British surgeon volunteering in the Democratic Republic of Congo performed a complicated shoulder amputation by following text messages from a colleague in London. Dr. David Nott had never before performed a forequarter amputation, a procedure done only about ten times a year in the U.K. and requiring the removal of the shoulder blade and clavicle.
His patient was a 16-year-old boy whose left arm had been ripped off and was developing a dangerous infection. Nott knew it was a do or die situation. So he texted Professor Meirion Thomas, a colleague in London who had performed the surgery before. Thomas texted back step-by-step instructions, explaining where to make the incisions and how to divide major nerves and arteries. The text instructions ended with “Easy! Good luck.”
