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Chapter 8 - Surgery

What the Hands Know

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2025

Jonathan Jansen
Affiliation:
Stellenbosch University
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Summary

This chapter is about discovery in a field that is extremely practical: surgery. When I started working in medicine, I thought my career would be satisfactory and interesting but not creative. It was only later in my life that I discovered the true creativity of a surgical procedure. Surgery is about feeling and touching. It is about tension in the tissue, traction, and countertraction. It is about beautiful sutures that lie back-to-back in the tissue. Perspective 1 is an extract of an article that was published in the journal Transplantation in 2015. It was written after the five-year follow-up results of the HIV-positive to-positive transplants that I pioneered at Groote Schuur Hospital and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Perspective 2 describes the hands’ work. What is this discovery – how does it feel? This perspective provides the story of hands in words. Perspective 3 is a sketch. It demonstrates the space in which the hands work. The things the hands do while discovering. Perspective 4 is the conversation that happens while the hands work.

Type
Chapter
Information
On Discovery
How Knowledge is Produced across the Disciplines
, pp. 91 - 107
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Muller, E., Barday, Z., Mendelson, M. and Kahn, D., 2015. ‘HIV-positive–to–HIV-positive kidney transplantation—results at 3 to 5 years.’ New England Journal of Medicine, 372(7), pp. 613620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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  • Surgery
  • Edited by Jonathan Jansen, Stellenbosch University
  • Book: On Discovery
  • Online publication: 05 May 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009596541.009
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  • Surgery
  • Edited by Jonathan Jansen, Stellenbosch University
  • Book: On Discovery
  • Online publication: 05 May 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009596541.009
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Surgery
  • Edited by Jonathan Jansen, Stellenbosch University
  • Book: On Discovery
  • Online publication: 05 May 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009596541.009
Available formats
×