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The first time a knife was put to Anna Alwoch's face, her lips were hacked off by rebels. The next two times, sharp blades were used by surgeons to rebuild her mouth -- and the process is almost done. Alwoch (55) is on a list of candidates for plastic surgery to repair her face, along with other victims who were mutilated by members of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. The LRA massacred thousands and abducted over 10 000 children to be soldiers and sex slaves during its 20-year rebellion against the central government. More than two...

Waiting for a joint replacement not only prolongs pain in the knees, it causes billions of dollars of damage to the health of the Canadian economy, a study released Tuesday by Canada's doctors says. The study, conducted for the Canadian Medical Association by the Centre for Spatial Economics, found that it cost the economy $14.8-billion in 2007 to have patients wait longer than medically recommended for four procedures: joint replacements, cataract surgery, coronary bypasses and MRI scans. That, in turn, cut provincial and federal government revenues by $4.4-billion, the report says. “Time spent waiting robs the economy of workers, both...

In India the LAP-BAND System has been proven the safest, simplest and effective way to treat severe obesity. If you are seriously overweight, the LAP-BAND System can help you achieve a happier, healthier life! In India the Lap-Band system is the least invasive of all weight loss surgeries. The system includes an adjustable silicon elastic band that is surgically placed around the stomach. The band induces weight loss by restricting food intake; when eating less, your body draws from its own fat to get the energy it needs. The Lap-Band is the only adjustable weight loss surgery; in fact, band...

"...is something we will investigate down to the last detail," said Dr. Joseph Sirven, education director for Mayo Clinic Arizona,..."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Rhode Island Hospital was fined $50,000 and reprimanded by the state Department of Health Monday after its third instance this year of a doctor performing brain surgery in the wrong side of a patient's head.

(CBS/AP) Nearly a week after surgeons removed the extra limbs from an Indian girl born with four arms and four legs, the bright-eyed 2-year-old made her first public appearance Tuesday after leaving the hospital's intensive care unit. Swathed in blankets and lying on her father's lap, the girl, named Lakshmi, appeared before reporters without the extra limbs which had led some people in her rural village to revere her as an incarnation of the four-armed goddess she was named after. Looking healthy and alert, Lakshmi had both of her legs in casts while her arms were free. After sitting for...

Lakshmi, second from left, sits in her mother Poonam's lap as she poses next to her father Shambhu and brother Mithilesh, right, at the Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, India, on Nov. 5. Doctors began operating Nov. 6 on the two-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs. BANGALORE, India - Doctors in southern India completed a grueling 24-hour operation Wednesday on a girl born with four arms and four legs that surgeons said will give the 2-year-old a chance at a normal life. The surgery went "wonderfully well," said Dr. Sharan Patil, who led a team of more than...

Scientist at Work | John Holcomb SAN ANTONIO — Since the war in Iraq began, Col. John Holcomb has been working to change the way the military takes care of its wounded. Along the way he has suffered a few dings himself. A tall medical doctor with a Southern lilt and close-cropped gray hair, Colonel Holcomb, 48, has spent his entire 27-year career in the Army, earning a reputation as one of the military’s top trauma surgeons. Since 2001, he has headed the Army’s Institute of Surgical Research, based on the campus of the Brooke Army Medical Center here. Under...

Obesity is more dangerous than smoking and will dramatically shorten the lives of millions, a landmark study has found. While smoking reduces life by an average of ten years, the research says being seriously overweight can cut life expectancy by as much as 13 years. The Foresight report, written by 250 leading scientists, says Britain's obesity crisis is so severe that it would take at least 30 years to reverse. If current trends continue, by 2050 about 60 per cent of men, 50 per cent of women and 25 per cent of children in the UK will be clinically obese...

AN NAJAF — A young boy from Hollendia underwent a final surgery to correct a severe colon condition at Al Sadr Hospital in An Najaf Oct. 9. The boy, Ahaip, had already undergone two surgeries to reintroduce his colon into his body. For Ahaip, this final surgery marked the end of a long road to recovery, made possible by U.S. Soldiers. Ahaip was born with an obstructed bowel at birth, which required emergency surgery. The surgery left Ahaip’s intestines outside his body until he was discovered by Soldiers from the 97th Civil Affairs Battalion, a Reserve unit from Fort Bragg,...

Not on the web site yet. He has a blocked carodid artery.

Australia's opposition Labor Party has questioned the need for female sailors to be given breast enlargements paid for with public money. An armed forces spokesman defended the operations, saying they were carried out for psychological reasons, not to make sailors "look sexy".

This is a really strange article. The most important part of the story is the last sentence. I haven't seen this reported elsewhere.An anonymous tip to the FBI led to the arrest of disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu in Colorado, according to recently unsealed court documents. Hsu, a Hong Kong native who appeared suddenly in the New York political scene about four years ago, had been scheduled to appear in court last week for a bail reduction hearing related to a 1991 grand theft case, but instead skipped town and a judge issued a new arrest warrant for him. He...

Early Ovarian Surgery Linked to Dementia Women who have their ovaries removed before menopause run a heightened risk of developing dementia or other mental problems later in life _ unless they take estrogen until age 50, a new study suggests. Experts said the research needs to be confirmed by further study, but the findings suggest another issue for premenopausal women and their doctors to discuss as they consider ovary removal.... Hormone therapy has been linked to a greater risk of dementia and heart attacks when given to women after age 65. But recent research indicates that when given before menopause...

BAGHDAD — For a child in Hollandia, the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team and Coalition forces have become the answer to his family’s prayers. Sitting in the local health clinic with his father on a warm May morning, Ahaip Najim had no idea that hope would come walking through the door. That morning, members of the 97th Civil Affairs Battalion and 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, were assessing the town’s needs. “They discovered him in the health clinic there and just gathered around him,” said Capt. Jimmy Hathaway, Headquarters Troop, 3-1 Cav. commander, out of Fort Benning, Ga. “They decided...

Thomas Martel, 28, of Bonnie Brae is a big guy. So he has a hard time using the features on ever-shrinking user interfaces on devices like his new iPhone. At least, he did, until he had his thumbs surgically altered in a revolutionary new surgical technique known as "whittling." "From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses," explains Martel. "Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds...

During all my years at FR I have only posted an appeal once, for prayers for US Army Col. Ret., Richard Randle, as he was fighting his greatest and last battle for his life. I was overwhelmed with the vast number of Freepers that responded with prayers.Today I come to this forum on behalf of a little puppy, name baby Moses. All I ask is for you to visit this website, http://helpbabymoses.squarespace.com and if you can find it in yourself to help with a donation, it would be appreciated. However, if you can not help with a small donation, then...

BOSTON (AP) - Brigham and Women's Hospital has given a surgical team permission to perform partial face transplants to certain disfigured patients, a newspaper reported. Brigham and Women's is the second U.S. hospital to make public its plans to offer the rare medical procedure, The Boston Globe reported. The first hospital was the Cleveland Clinic. To date, only three partial face transplants have been announced worldwide. Two were performed in France, and one in China. Critics argue that it's unethical to expose patients to the risks of a transplant for a non-lifesaving procedure. The newspaper reported that Brigham and Women's...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A teen whose feet were severed at Six Flags' Kentucky Kingdom has had one foot reattached according to a statement released by her family. The family of Kaitlyn Lasitter, 13, whose feet were cut off when The Superman Tower of Power malfunctioned at Six Flags’ Kentucky Kingdom last month, issued a statement updating the details of her medical condition Tuesday. The statement reports that Kaitlyn’s right foot has successfully been reattached at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she remains in stable condition. “We were not able to reattach the left lower extremity due to the severity of...

A few years ago, two Long Islanders with hepatitis C met in a support group and soon discovered they had something in common: both had become infected with the virus after open-heart surgery — by the same surgeon. Public health investigators, who were looking into one of the two cases, had not asked members of the patient’s surgical team whether one of them might be infected. Now they did. Eventually they determined that the surgeon, Dr. Michael Hall, was infected and that he was the inadvertent source of both patients’ infections — and that of at least one other patient....

I've been around FR since 1998, only as a token contributor. But I am taking the step of asking for prayer for my son Matthew, who will be 6 in a couple weeks. Matthew was just diagnosed with a brain tumor and we expect his surgery will be on Tuesday. If you can add your prayers to the growing chorus of us sending our requests to God, our family would be very grateful. If your church has a prayer chain or is willing to add our son to your service, that's much appreciated. We know every church family has people...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania hospitals reported making serious mistakes in the operating room _ using the wrong procedure, operating on the wrong body part or even the wrong patient _ 174 times during a 2 1/2 year period, according to a report released Tuesday by the state's patient-safety agency. The state Patient Safety Authority, which collects data on medical errors and advises health care facilities on how to improve their practices, issued its report on so-called "wrong-site" surgeries as part of an effort to eliminate them. Between June 2004 and December 2006, the time period the authority studied, it also...

NEW DELHI — The 15-year-old son of two doctors performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent bid to gain a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest surgeon. Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges, officials said Thursday. Dr. K. Murugesan showed a recording of his son performing a Caesarean section to an Indian Medical Association chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu last month, said Dr. Venkatesh Prasad, secretary of the association. The video showed Murugesan anesthetizing...

Thanks to all for your prayers and support. It’s been quite an experience. NYerFRiends, NYer is now home. She had surgery on Monday and it was expected that she might have to stay in the hospital far longer than two days. The surgery was long and she is in some pain, but she seems to be in good spirits!Sandyeggo and I have been her FReeper contacts. It seems best that we let her fill you in on those details she wishes to release. The good news is that the surgery is over, she is now at home, she has access...

BAGHDAD — Indissar Fadhil gave birth to Hassan about eight months ago. The boy was healthy aside from one major complication: He had a cleft lip and palate. His upper lip had no sides because they were compressed to the center. He had no roof inside his mouth to separate his mouth from his nasal cavity. “I was astonished and worried for my baby because he wouldn’t stop crying and he was unable to eat,” Fadhil said. Fadhil said she experienced many struggles and setbacks before receiving positive feedback about getting treatment for her son. “I initially contacted several doctors...

CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Shevet Achim, a non-profit Christian organization based in Israel, has been saving the lives of babies and children who would otherwise die without critical heart surgery. Since its founding in 1994 by Jonathan Miles, Shevet Achim (Brothers United) has provided medical care for Palestinian children. In more recent years they've been able to transport children with critical heart conditions from Iraq to hospitals in Israel, as Iraqi medical centers aren't equipped to perform these complex procedures. Reading profile after profile and seeing photos of the children evoke a profound sense of humility. If a picture...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An Air Force veteran filed a federal claim after undergoing an operation at a Veterans Administration hospital in which a healthy testicle was removed instead of a potentially cancerous one. Benjamin Houghton, 47, was to have had his left testicle removed on June 14 at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center because there was a chance it could harbor cancer cells. It also was atrophied and painful. But doctors mistakenly removed the right testicle, according to medical records and the claim, which seeks $200,000 for future care and unspecified damages. "At first I thought it...

U.S. scientists have invented a system they say might lead to surgical procedures that don't produce scars. University of Texas researchers created the technique -- still in the developmental stage -- that allows the magnetic maneuvering of laparoscopic surgical tools inserted into the abdominal cavity through a patient's naval or throat. Dr. Jeffrey Cadeddu, an associate professor of urology and radiology at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, said he got the idea while watching a television show featuring teenagers who used magnets to hold studs on their lips to avoid lip piercing. The system uses magnets positioned outside the abdomen...

HOUSTON -- An 8-month-old Iraqi infant, who suffered nerve damage during birth, is expected to recover some movement in his right hand following successful surgery in Houston on Tuesday. "It went really well," said Dr. Rahul Nath, the Houston surgeon who performed the two-hour surgery on baby Karm. Nath specializes in treating children with brachial-plexus injuries like Karm's. Nath had to perform a nerve bypass operation after discovering that the child's nerves had been pulled out of the spinal cord. He believes Karm will eventually have movement in his hand. The infant's father, Mustafa, who staged a global search to...

Close window Published online: 28 February 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070226-8 Electric switch could turn on limb regenerationTadpoles use a proton pump to direct tissue regrowth.Heidi Ledford Tadpoles: chop off their tails and they grow back. NHPA Tadpoles can achieve something that humans may only dream of: pull off a tadpole's thick tail or a tiny developing leg, and it'll grow right back — spinal cord, muscles, blood vessels and all. Now researchers have discovered the key regulator of the electrical signal that convinces Xenopus pollywogs to regenerate amputated tails. The results, reported this week in Development, give some researchers hope...

CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) - Playing video games appears to help surgeons with skills that truly count: how well they operate using a precise technique, a study said on Monday. There was a strong correlation between video game skills and a surgeon's capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery in the study published in the February issue of Archives of Surgery. Laparoscopy and related surgeries involve manipulating instruments through a small incision or body opening where the surgeon's movements are guided by watching a television screen. Video game skills translated into higher scores on a day-and-half-long surgical skills test, and the correlation was much...

Prayer request for a VieNam Vet...

AP MEDICAL WRITER WASHINGTON -- Doctors are beginning to offer a new alternative to hip replacement, one aimed at younger, athletic baby boomers who've worn out their joints too soon. Now they no longer have to wait until they hit their 60s for a fix. It's called hip resurfacing, covering a damaged hip's ball and socket with smooth metal rather than cutting away worn bone and replacing it. The operation hit the U.S. market last spring with Food and Drug Administration approval of the British-designed Birmingham Hip Resurfacing System. Competitors are in clinical trials here, and expected to clear FDA...

I will be under the knife on Monday for cervical cancer. The whole baby-making machine is gonna be taken out and dumped. Good thing I don't need it anymore! Although doc says they got all the "cancer spot" with the biopsy they did in December, they still are doing a histerectomy to play it safe. I couldn't agree more with the decision. At 54 a womb is only a liability! Aside from my, family, friends and Rabbi's prayers, yours would certainly be appreciated! Thanks, fellow FReepers!

CHICAGO - Minister Louis Farrakhan, who recently ceded leadership of the Nation of Islam to an executive board because of ill health, has undergone a 12-hour operation, the organization said Saturday. Physicians have told Farrakhan's family they were pleased with the operation's outcome but will monitor him closely for the next 24 to 48 hours, the Chicago-based group said in a statement. No other details were released, and a man who answered the telephone at the office of Farrakhan's chief of staff declined to reveal the nature of the surgery or where it was performed. Farrakhan, 73, wrote in a...

My wife is having surgery Tuesday 1-2-07. It is routine, but it is major. She's doing better than I am about it. Anyone willing to say a brief prayer on our behalf, I assure you, it will be greatly appreciated.

SAN FRANCISCO -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the state Monday for surgery after breaking his leg in an Idaho skiing accident over the weekend, a spokeswoman said. Schwarzenegger will undergo non-emergency surgery Tuesday morning to repair his fractured right femur, which he broke while skiing with his family in Sun Valley, Idaho, on Saturday, spokeswoman Sabrina Demayo Lockhart said. The procedure will use cables and screws to secure the governor's upper right thigh bone, said Dr. Kevin Ehrhart, the orthopedic surgeon performing the surgery at an undisclosed hospital in Los Angeles. The governor, who has already been admitted...

CUBA is on tenterhooks today over Fidel Castro's fragile health, as residents of the Communist island await a visiting Spanish doctor's diagnois on whether additional surgery is needed. Officials in Madrid confirmed today that a Spanish surgeon had been disptched to Cuba to treat Castro, 80, who has not been seen in public for five months. Few medical updates have been made public since his reported intestinal surgery. "The Cuban Government decided to ask one of our top professionals to care for its president," health councilor for Madrid's regional government, Manuel Lamela said. "When a government asks for help or...

South Dakota's Republican governor, Mike Rounds, would appoint a replacement if Johnson's seat were vacated by his death or resignation. A Republican appointee would create a 50-50 tie and effectively allow the GOP to retain Senate control because of Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote. There is ample precedent for senators to continue to hold office while incapacitated.

POSTED: 11:13 p.m. EST, December 13, 2006 Editor's Note: The CNN Wire is a running log of the latest news from CNN World Headquarters, reported by CNN's correspondents and producers, and The CNN Wire editors. "Posted" times are Eastern Daylight. Sources: S.D. senator undergoing surgery at Washington hospital WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota was undergoing brain surgery Wednesday night at George Washington University Hospital after being hospitalized earlier in the day due to stroke-like symptoms, two Democratic sources familiar with his condition told CNN. Johnson, 59, was taken to the hospital Wednesday morning after he appeared...

LONDON (Reuters) - The medicines cost watchdog has for the first time recommended weight-loss surgery for exceptionally obese children. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said operations should be considered for obese young people who were past puberty and at risk of developing life-threatening diseases. NICE also urged the National Health Service to consider surgery as a last resort to help save severely obese adults from diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure. Many NHS trusts, struggling with a lack of resources and funding, have been reluctant to offer surgery like stomach stapling that reduces the appetite...

Surgeon-Commander Sidney Hamilton, who has died aged 94, saved many lives in the battlecruiser Repulse when she and the battleship Prince of Wales were sunk in December 1941.The two warships were heading for the Gulf of Thailand after Pearl Harbor when they were overwhelmed by Japanese high-level bombers and torpedo planes. Hamilton was conducting his daily surgery as the air raid alarm sounded at 1100 hours; he went immediately to his action station, ordering his staff to close an armoured hatch and set out their instruments. As several casualties were brought in, he heard of others elsewhere in the ship,...

People with ruptured disks in their lower backs usually recover whether or not they have surgery, researchers are reporting today. The study, a large trial, found that surgery appeared to relieve pain more quickly but that most people recovered eventually and that there was no harm in waiting. And that, surgeons said, is likely to change medical practice. The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is the only large and well-designed trial to compare surgery for sciatica with waiting. The study was controversial from the start, with many surgeons saying they knew that the operation worked...

Freeper FLIGHTLINE is an old Marine buddy of mine. His wife just had a historectomy today.

A team of researchers at MIT and the University of Hong Kong have developed a biodegradable liquid that can quickly stop bleeding. Composed of peptides, the liquid self-assembles into a protective nanofiber gel when applied to a wound. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and Kwok-Fai So, chair of the department of anatomy at the University of Hong Kong, discovered the liquid's ability to stop bleeding while experimenting with it as a matrix for regrowing brain cells in hamsters. The researchers then conducted a series of experiments on various mammals, including rodents...

Related To Story Sally Jordan Hill walks to a court hearing in Charlotte, N.C. Nurse Arrested In 2001 Death Of Former High School RivalCold Case Unit: N.C. Nurse Administered Fatal Dose Of PainkillerCHARLOTTE, Colo. -- A registered nurse from North Carolina was ordered held without bond Monday and faces homicide charges in the death of a patient who turned out to be a classmate rival from 30 years ago.  Sally Jordan Hill of Matthews, N.C., was accused of killing Sandra Baker Joyner, who died after undergoing cosmetic surgery in 2001 in Charlotte.  Hill is a certified registered nurse anesthetist...

Young Iraqi Girl Needs Life Saving Surgery A young Iraqi girl who befriended U.S. Marines and sailors is in desperate need of life-saving surgery in order to save her life. By Cpl. Antonio Rosas1st Marine Division CAMP AL QA'IM, Iraq, Aug. 31, 2006 -- After befriending Marines and sailors serving in this region of Iraq, a 12-year-old Iraqi girl who is in need of a kidney and liver transplant is now in a life-or-death struggle. Hadael Hamade, a young Iraqi girl from Karabilah, a city of about 30,000 near the Iraq-Syria border, desperately needs life-saving surgery in order to...

Life-saving operations on soldiers in combat zones could become possible thanks to a portable robotic surgeon that allows doctors to perform surgery on the battlefield without endangering themselves.Surgical robots that can be operated remotely are already used in some civilian hospitals. These include a system called "da Vinci" made by US company Intuitive Surgical, and another system called ZEUS, made by US firm Computer Motion. However, these existing systems are large and cumbersome, taking up much of an operating room. Now Blake Hannaford and colleagues at the University of Washington, in Seattle, US, have come up with a system small...

Cardiac MRI tests confirm a dramatic 60% increase in patient’s heart function after procedure that combines coronary artery bypass grafting surgery with adult stem cell therapy. Bangkok, Thailand (PRWEB) April 27, 2006 -- Cardiac MRI tests confirm a dramatic 60% increase in patient’s heart function after procedure that combines coronary artery bypass grafting surgery with adult stem cell therapy. When 56 year old Thai businessman, Mr Sujin Lewwattanachotinan, underwent VesCell™ adult stem cell therapy in early July 2005 at Bangkok Heart Hospital he wasn’t expecting a miracle. Mr Lewwattanachotinan was a heart patient whose doctors had told him that there...

Wearing lipstick, a scooped-neck sweater and nearly waist-length hair, the witness cried while describing what it feels like to be a woman trapped inside a man's body. "The greatest loss is the dying I do inside a little bit every day," said Michelle Kosilek, an inmate who is serving a life sentence for murder. [snip] Since then, Kosilek has been fighting for the state Department of Correction to pay for sex-change surgery, which can cost from $10,000 to $20,000. After two lawsuits and two trials, the decision now rests with a federal judge. [snip] The case is being closely watched...