Mark1958 that picture looks like a cath lab. These sterile field pictures are so cool to look at. Not everyday that you get to see real pictures from the "Authorized Personnel Only" area. Hopefully we will see more.
4honor wrote:
Oh come on, can you take time to answer some of our questions? I am wondering about the security clearance and sterile equipment questions... Please? This stuff is really fascinating...
P.S. I was asked by a girl to photograph her giving birth... interesting eh?
Ok sorry,I was the staff photographer at a hospital for 10 years and shot quit a few surgical procedures before starting my own business specializing in health care 9 years ago. Most were/are used for teaching purposes. Most of what I shoot is advertising type work.
I have to gown up and scrub in but the equipment doesn't produce airborne germs so that doesn't have to be sterile as long as I'm not directly over the area thats open or touch a sterile field like the gown on the patient or the draping on the tray that has the instruments I'm OK. Wanna get an OR nurses jaws rear tight bump into a sterile drape.
As long as you don't show anything identifying the patient unless you have his written consent you also good. Most of the time depending on what procedure the only area not draped is the area being worked on so a good deal of the time the head/ face are up next to the an
anesthesiologist behind a drape.
The hospitals I work in require proof of insurance (liability) and usually its the surgeons that call me in for procedures. I know many of the areas best surgeons and have for years. I have employee type badges for most of the hospitals I work in.
I'm a medical photographer who has done a lot of cases, mostly eye surgery, actually had a short segment of 16mm film on Discovery once. Anyway i always worked for a hospital or a clinic, so my images belong to them. Actually had a friend negotiate rites to his pics while he was employed by a two different hospitals. The ones I have worked for have never gone for that.
My first case I ever photographed was an open heart case in the mid '70s. I was relagated to the third riser, all I had was a 55 micro. The surgeon kept complaining that none of the photos my group did were close enough. So i just said well if you want the imges closer I have to be closer, can't get what you want from back here. So he said well why don't you come down and get closer, I took one step forward and was out of the OR faster than I know what hit me, head nurse. I actually wrote the MD a note apologizing saying that the group needed a a 100 or 200mm lens for this kind of work, he wrote back to say forget it.
Anyway how did you set up your rig for that POV, were you and the camera above the field? Or was the camera and you had a video feed? Or were you through a microscope? Just interesting how problems are solved.
The surgery was on a Thursday, the patient went home on Sunday and a week form that following Monday he was back in the Drs office and you would have never known he had surgery except he was still moving a little gingerly.
Thanks no not daylight. When I use to shoot transparencies and Ektachrome a 30 megenta filter would put me right there but now I shoot raw and tweak it before I convert.
Phyl wrote:
Fantastic. That's as close as I hope to ever need to be to that surgery!
Yeah thats a rough one. They are lucky they caught it when they did. If the aneurysm had of not been detected and burst he would probably not have made it.
Fantastic shots! Far better than anything on the valve manufacturers sites. I assume you were scrubbing in - any issues with bringing the camera into the sterile field?
I am wondering about the security clearance and sterile equipment questions... Please? This stuff is really fascinating...