History of Veres Needle

Hey there listeners, this is Rod from Cincinnati Children's. If you're listening to this podcast on anything other than the stay current pediatric surgery app, that's okay. Just know that you're missing out on content like images, articles, things that we're going to give you in the app, so that you can look at them in real time while you listen to the podcast. The app again is stay current pediatric surgery. It's in the Apple App Store, it's in the Google Play Store. Download it today, but until then, enjoy the episode. To all of my surgical colleagues out there, I have a challenge for you. I want you to spell the word Veress, as in Veress needle, that little spring loaded needle we used to create pneumoperitoneum. Don't Google it, don't ask your friends. This is how some of my attendings spell it. This is Dr. Bondoc, Dr. Rimeski, and Dr. Garrison all at Cincinnati Children's. Veress v e r e s s. I think Veress needle is spelled v e r e s s. Veress v e r e s s. What's so hard about that? Right, what is so hard about that? I mean, that's how I thought it was spelled. Is that how you spelled it in your head? Guess what, we're wrong. And you know who pointed that out to us? A pediatric surgery resident out in Ecuador. Yo soy Jorge Oliveros eh soy eh residente de cirugia pediatrica del cuarto año. That is Jorge Riveros. He is the author of an editorial that was recently published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery about the history of the Veress needle. And he's accompanied by his friend who acted as a translator for us while they sat on this Zoom call in their hospital cafeteria. Um my name is Belen Foretieri. I'm an orthopedic resident from the same hospital. Uh we are both from well, he's from the Catholic University and I'm from the um Guayaquil University. And with their help, we're going to walk you through the history of the Veress needle and why it's only spelled with one S. So Jorge is a very smart guy and he reads the Journal of Pediatric Surgery every month when it comes out. He's leafing through and he notices something interesting to him. Escribí sobre eh. So I wrote this letter because um Journal of Pediatric Surgery which um they wrote an article with the world Veress, which was um wrong right I think that people has to know things um well how's the how they're reading um before like um talking about the stuff. And he goes a level deeper than that to say that we should have respect for the surgeons who came before us who created these innovative tools that we still use today in 2021. But it's not like Jorge is a big history buff. So how did he notice this? Estaba estudiando sobre eh los materiales que. Actually, I was studying the materials that we use for um laparoscopic surgery. I realized that in another in some articles there were like with one S and then two S. So Jorge is reading textbooks, noticing a discrepancy. Sometimes they spell Veress with one S, sometimes they spell it with two. I'm going to be honest, I would have just brush it off and kept reading. But Jorge's level of attention to detail is not only why he's going to be a better surgeon than than I will be, but it also motivated him to take a deeper dive and find out about the creator, Dr. Veress. El doctor Veress eh eh Dr. Janos Veress is born in Hungary in 1903. He gets his medical degree in 1927 at the University of Debrecen. By 1932, he's the head of internal and respiratory medicine at the Regional Hospital of Kapovar. He was internal medicine doctor and also an um pneumologist. So he's a lung doctor in the 1930s at a time when tuberculosis is very common and hard to treat. And the way that they treated it back then was very different from how we treat it today. You heard that right. The way that they treated tuberculosis back then was by creating an iatrogenic pneumothorax. They basically have that affected lung sh collapse and Dr. Veress created a way to do that with his spring loaded needle. They used it there for several years, but then in 1938, he decided I should publish this. He um published an article um in which it was in Germany. And that publication was super popular. Everyone around the world who was treating tuberculosis suddenly wanted to use this Veress needle. But there was a problem with the publication. That's when um they made the mistake by uh writing the name with double S. So the German publication accidentally inserted an extra S. And because Dr. Veress's technique and device was so effective at creating a pneumothorax, everybody around the world was using it, everybody around the world read this paper, and they all thought that his name was spelled with two S's. That perpetuated for decades to the point where now, almost 100 years later, we still think it's spelled with two S's. Uh he loves um watching your podcast and reading your stories in social media and all the stuff, learning from you all the time. That's the part that really hit me in the feels. I mean, that's why Todd and I do this. That's why we put all this information out there on the internet because we want to help pediatric surgeons around the world. And the best part is when they come back and teach us something, like Jorge did today with the assistance of Belen. And hopefully that um he's working on his English, so hopefully another time he can speak more clearly with you guys. Jorge is going to go on to be a phenomenal pediatric surgeon. I have no doubt about that. Belen, I know is going to be an outstanding orthopedic surgeon, and Todd and I were trying to recruit her to come to the United States. Her English was fantastic. If you are listening to this podcast somewhere out in the world, and you have a cool story you want us to tell, this here is proof that language is a barrier that we can overcome, and we want to tell your story. So shoot us a message, if you're in the app, you can leave a comment or you can find us on social media. Let us know the story you want to tell and we'll help you tell that story to the world. In fact, I'd be honored to. So until next time, I'm Rod from Cincinnati Children's and remember, knowledge should be free.