In a sharing by Redditors to an upcoming med student, the longest procedure a surgeon had was a 16-hour procedure doing both column acetabulum and an L4 burst fracture.
How do surgeons make it through those 16-hours procedures when they need to pee? Surgeons take breaks just like you and me during their long operations. In complex surgery, there is a team of surgeons, so one can leave while the others carry on. A "comfort stop" would be planned for long operations too. Except during an emergency like the pandemic whereby every second count to never-ending patients, surgeons and doctors do not wear diapers at all.
Nevertheless, it was depicted in mainstream media that surgeons do wear diapers in TV series like Grey Anatomy which is highly unlikely in real-life. An alternative to diapers would be a catheter if a doctor wanted.
In the Grey Anatomy series, a character Dr. Lexie had to wear diapers for operations. The 2009 video mentioned how genius it was to wear the diaper and similar to how NASA would do it. Do read our post about astronauts wearing diapers too if you are interested.
According to the producer Nowalk, the idea to have Dr. Lexie wear a diaper to get through the operation was inspired by an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. He added: "It wasn't that big of a leap for us to go diaper. Our doctors are hardcore by nature.
I underwent surgery once in my life and that was during my appendicitis treatment. I couldn't tell what happened as I went into my deep sleep in the operation room when they gave me the anesthesia via the mouthpiece. The next moment I was conscious was being wheeled to my ward after the operations not knowing what happened at all.
How surgeons stay focused for hours in operation
Nevertheless, I read up and found that surgeons can munch food outside the operating room during long surgeries. This is to ensure the surgeons only operate when they are sharp and do not fumble when performing a critical action.
The only critical role in the operations is the anesthesiologist who ensures the patient is still in anesthesia safely. Imagine the shock and damage that your body will receive if you got up while an operation is ongoing!
Why doctors wear diapers during coronavirus
Another source whereby doctors were reported to wear diapers was during the pandemic whereby the number of patients swarmed the entire hospital. Besides the doctors, the entire hospital staff in Wuhan were activated to wear a hazmat suit.
This ensures the virus does not spread to medical staff and prevents patients without the virus from getting the virus from medical staff.
The hazmat suit is very uncomfortable to remove and troublesome to put back if you needed to pee to ensure safety. Those who worked in a cleanroom environment like manufacturing will understand better. You need to go through a rigorous process to ensure there is no contamination.
The solution to long hours in a hazmat suit? Diapers. Yes, in those emergency cases, the hospital staff had to wear diapers or suffer from the inconvenience. In fact, they have little time to even eat or drink water during the period to ensure as many people get medical assistance as possible.
Appreciation to staff who sacrificed their time and going beyond their job to help everyone during the pandemic.
Sources
You can read up on other information about diapers that we found:-
- Wuhan coronavirus: Hospital staff wears adult diapers, no time to pee (businessinsider.com) - Wuhan went under quarantine on Wednesday, leaving local hospitals alone to treat an immense number of patients who contracted the novel coronavirus.
- Coronavirus: Hospital workers 'wearing adult diapers because they ... (independent.co.uk) - Vital medical supplies dwindling as government rushes to build two hospitals to cope with demand
- Do surgeons wear pampers during long surgeries? - Quora (quora.com)
- coronavirus in china: They wear diapers, cut down bathroom breaks ... (economictimes.indiatimes.com) - Tired and understaffed, medical workers have had to deal with thousands of new cases per week in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the outbreak that first emerged late last year. Many doctors have had to see patients without proper masks or protective body suits, resorting to reusing the same equipment when they should be changed regularly.
- Do surgeons wear diapers? - surgery bodily functions medicine (ask.metafilter.com) - How do surgeons satisfy various bodily requirements during marathon surgeries?