Brain Surgeon Operates With £10 Cordless Drill

[theredmeanie]

There's a discrepancy about the price in the article, but even at £30, the price is right.

Brain Surgeon Operates With £10 Cordless Drill

An eminent British neuro-surgeon has been performing complex brain operations using a £30 do-it-yourself cordless power drill at a clinic in Ukraine.

Henry Marsh, a senior consultant at St George’s hospital in Tooting, south London, has used the Bosch 9.6 volt battery-operated hand tool to open up the skulls of his patients to remove life-threatening tumours. Occasionally the battery has gone flat halfway through.

The operation is performed with the patients fully awake – a technique that fell out of use in Britain 50 years ago. Marsh said that Ukrainians could withstand such a practice because they were “very tough”.


source

 

[Spookdaddy]

There's nothing that unusual about the use of a cordless drill - even a cheap one. When I bought my first cordless way back in the early 90's everyone swore by Makita and I was only mildly surprised to see, more than once, documentary footage of surgeons using a Makita 9.6V that looked suspiciously like the same one I had in my toolbag.

(Although you'd really want to make sure it wasn't switched to hammer!!! :shock: )