“What we see depends on what we look for…”
John Ludbrook
In 2025 surgery is a highly sub-specialised and compartmentalised business. It is full of regulations, guidelines, credentials and qualifications. All of this exists to maintain standards, but what is the impact on innovation? The Root-Bernstein principle maintains that polymaths are the key to driving the process of research and innovation, rather than practitioners who are single focus experts. I recently began to research the story of New York Surgeon Willy Meyer, for a post on radical mastectomy. Meyer actually had many strings to his surgical bow. Apart from surgery for breast cancer, he was a skilled thoracic surgeon. He was the first to use positive ventilation for thoracotomies. More broadly he pioneered the ureteric catheter, championed a standardised approach to appendicitis, and established the principles of prostatectomy for cancer. His 1930 book Cancer, identified the need to clearly define operable and inoperable in light of the emerging evidence of the systemic nature of malignancy. #renaissanceman #letsmakelemonade
Pen Paint and Scalpel 