Lecture On Bloodless Medicine, Surgery

BRIDGEPORT — Bridgeport Hospital will sponsor a free lecture on advance medical directives and bloodless medicine and surgery, 2 to 3:30 pm, Saturday, November 15, in the hospital’s fourth-floor Hollander Auditorium, 267 Grant Street.

Bridgeport Hospital’s Bloodless Medicine & Surgery Program coordinates a range of medical and surgical procedures for patients who for personal or religious reasons choose not to receive blood transfusions.

Bloodless Medicine & Surgery Coordinator David Gonzalez will provide an overview of the program, as well as information about advance medical directives.

Thanks to advances in technology and the development of new medications, a variety of procedures, including heart, cancer, and joint-replacement surgery, can be safely and effectively performed without the need for blood transfusions. Technology such as the cell saver, a device typically used in open-heart surgery to cleanse and recycle a patient’s own blood, allows physicians to perform even the most complicated procedures without blood transfusions.

Special lasers, which coagulate the blood while cutting tissue to reduce bleeding, have also aided bloodless techniques.

Other devices use electrical current to seal blood vessels cut during surgery. New medications that expand blood volume or boost red blood cell production help to replenish blood supply without a transfusion, and are used in many procedures including chemotherapy, which tends to increase red cell consumption.

To register, call toll-free 888-357-2396.