The Last Xigris~®Survivor

摘要

Upon my return to New York from the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons held in San Francisco, your humble correspondent resumed taking call in the surgical ICU. Making rounds that Friday morning, October 28, 2011, substantial time was allotted to discussing the critical illness and recovery of a patient that had been admitted right before this writer went off call to make final preparations for San Francisco. The patient is (note the emphasis) a 76-year-old male who underwent a robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy on October 12, complicated by paralytic ileus. On post-operative day three, the patient developed nausea and tachycardia (heart rate, 130 beats/min with a right axis deviation by electrocardiogram). The patient vomited and had possible pulmonary aspiration of gastric contents during placement of a naso-gastric tube.