» Specialists

As bad as the NHS in the UK can be, there are times when you get to hear about some damned good specialists.

In this case, the BBC News website reports on a 15-year old from Pontefract.

Tom Lemm fought cancer for three years, but a tumor in the upper part of his left arm meant surgeons were faced with having to amputate the entire arm, at the shoulder joint. Normally, amputating a limb at the joint (shoulder/hips) means the patient can’t use an artificial limb - there’s no stump left to attach one to.

I guess someone looked at the arm beforehand and realized that there was a large amount of it would be “wasted”, unaffected by the cancer but having to be removed in the process nonetheless.

Now I’m no orthopod, but even I can hazard a guess as to just how complicated their solution would end up being to implement.

The surgeons took the unaffected elbow, and tissue, to fashion a new shoulder joint, of sorts.

Of course, that’s no “replacement” for an arm, but it did change the outcome for the better. By taking the elbow, the surgeons were able to craft enough of a “shoulder” and stump so an artificial arm can be used in the future.

Perfect, no, but it’s got to be better for a 15-year old (or anyone else for that matter) than having nothing there at all.

According to the article, this type of operation has never been performed in the UK or Europe before, although it says it’s been done in Japan in the past. How effective it will be in the long run is up in the air, I guess.

I don’t usually have anything good to say about the NHS - but in this case, they’ve shown the doctors themselves still rank right up there!

Tags: NHS