Surgical Services at Monmouth Medical Center - From Gaslight to Laser

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.