Awake Cardiac Bypass Surgery

There is nothing quite like watching surgery, as viewers of Gray's Anatomy will agree.


However, when the surgery is on yourself, and you happen to be having open heart surgery and you happen to be awake the whole time, I am not sure I would agree. This study, from Italy, examines the outcome of patients who undergo open-heart surgery while on cardiac bypass, while awake. Awake bypass surgery has actually been around for several years, first performed in the UK in 2003, first performed in the world in 1998, and in the USA in 2000. To watch an operation, check it out here. It's not quite like this dramatization, in which a talk show participant takes out his own heart.