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In the early days of Monmouth Medical Center, a patient undergoing
gall bladder surgery was in the hospital about three weeks. Today,
most patients go home the same day as their gallbladder surgery,
which is performed through a state-of-the-art minimally invasive
procedure pioneered in New Jersey by MMC surgeons.
Early in the
20th century, there were no blood banks, so transfusions were given
person-to-person. Anesthesia took the form of ether or chloroform,
given drop by drop on a cloth covering the patient's face. Patients
were brought directly from their rooms to surgery and back again,
because there were no holding area or recovery rooms.
By the 1930s,
operations requiring greater skills were being performed. In the
decades that followed, the hospital attracted specialty surgeons
skilled in operations previously done only at distant medical centers.
It was in the 1940s that Monmouth gained international renown
for treating polio patients with a combination of curare - a relaxant
drug used by South American Indians as a poison for their arrows
- and intensive physical therapy. The volume of polio patients
reached its peak in 1949, with patients coming from other states
and even from overseas.
When these polio patient required surgery,
it was performed by physicians of the Orthopaedic Department, a
service which pioneered in another way. In 1945, orthopaedics became
the hospital's first accredited residency program, certified by
the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery.
Throughout its history,
the hospital has quickly adopted the earliest surgical innovations
- stapler surgery, vascular surgery involving tissue grafts and
the use of synthetics - setting the stage for other progressive
techniques. Among them were total hip and knee replacements, breast
conservation instead of radical mastectomy, and a great variety
of outpatient operations. Early in the 1980s, Monmouth introduced
microsurgery, especially for the hand, eye and ear.
When the hospital
entered its second century, it was a recognized center for laser
surgery, attracting patients from many areas for this versatile
form of surgery, often performed on an outpatient basis.
For more information on surgical services, or for a referral to
a Monmouth-affiliated surgeon, please call our physician referral
service at 732-870-5500.
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