About Curtis J. Edwards, MD, FACS Expertise Can answer general and vascular surgery questions, trauma, burns, some plastic surgery questions, general gastrointestinal surgery and gastrointestinal medical questions and questions regarding aviation medicine.
Experience Board certified general surgeon. Seventeen years practice experience in general, vascular, and no-cardiac thoracic surgery and endoscopy.
Organizations College of Surgeons, AMA, Aerospace Medical Assoc., Civil Aviation Medical Assoc.
Education/Credentials BA, MD, American Board of Surgery, Fellow American College of Surgeons, seventeen years practice all phases, including teaching.
Question QUESTION: I am a 23 year old female. I am scheduled to have gallbladder surgery tomorrow. I know this may seem
like a dumb question but I am really shy and VERY private. I have learned that I will put under for this surgery and I'm not thrilled about that. Believe it or not my main concern is being exposed. Will I be nude for any length of time? I am mortified at this. But please tell me the truth. Will my breasts be exposed and for how long? Also I am currently on my period. Will they allow me to wear my panties or will they remove them? Even if I'm on my period? I apologize for this question but I am shy and don't have the courage to ask my doctor and nurses. If I am exposed who will see me? I am embarrassed beyond words. I know by the time this is posted my surgery will have passed but I still want to know what occurred during my surgery. Please help! I am so sorry to ask these questions doctor but I am just so nervous and shy and totally embarrassed. Also, will my husband be allowed in the room if he wears the proper clothing?
ANSWER: You will indeed be nude for a brief period. A catheter will be placed into your bladder to watch your urine output and you will briefly have your breast exposed. The sterile surgical field drapes will be placed and the only thing to be seen at that moment is your abdomen. Everyone working in the operating room is a medical professional and has studied for the human body for many long years. We are dispassionate for the look of the breast or the vulva. It is only part of the machine we are trying to fix. The operating room has a scrub nurse, a circulating nurse, an anesthesiologist, a surgeon and his assistant. I have participated in over fifteen thousand surgeries and I cannot remember patient's faces let alone their bra size or the measurement. Rest assured you are safe. No, your husband will not be allowed into the operating room for major surgery unless your hospital is very different than the hospitals I have worked in through the years. You will be fine.
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QUESTION: Thanks Doc. A catheter will be used even if I am bleeding from a period? I'm so embarrassed.
ANSWER: The catheter is to keep your bladder decompressed and to insure your kidneys are functioning adequately, a measure of your fluid status. The goal is to protect your life and help you, far more important than modesty. I have never met a patient who died of embarassment. I have known patients who died of kidney failure or low blood pressure, even from gallbladder surgery.
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QUESTION: Doc,
You have been amazing and I can't thank you enough. You mentioned in the first part of this that the surgeon has an asst. My surgeons assistant is a 23 year old woman like me. It makes me a tad nervous. What is the job of a surgeons asst?
Answer The surgical assistant holds retractors and give counter traction to allow the operation to proceed. Two hands is just not enough when doing big surgery. The surgical assistant may be a physician, a physician assistant, a nurse or a trained surgical scrub technician who works with the surgeon under his direction.
