6 ms·
Dying baby saved when doc designed & built dialysis machine from scratch in garage
- sspencer 18y agoThat doctor deserves some serious kudos. I cannot even fathom how grateful those parents must have been for his work after being told by all other doctors that the baby was too small for dialysis. That kind of fuck-you-I-can-make-it-smaller ballsiness is why I am proud to call myself a hacker.
- ajross 18y agoNot to belittle the doctor's work, but the truth is this isn't that hard a hack to imagine. Dialysis is a pretty simple process, done with a diffusion membrane. No doubt what he did was take a membrane intended for a normal machine and size it down with "plumbing" appropriate for the patient. But then, that's kind of an essential quality of all great hacks, isn't it? They all look straightforward and simple when they're finished.
- ericb 18y agoThe very definition of out of the box thinking, no? I think it's easy to underestimate this. How many times do we hear of something like this. Not often. Most people play the cards they're dealt. He printed a new deck for this girl. This guy is the my-hero type of awesome.
- netcan 18y agoThe technical difficulty is almost a side thing I guess. The box is the limitations of the medical profession. What I think is the interesting part of this is that he did not say: 'not my job' or (more likely) 'I wish that this was someone's job' or ' 'I wish we could do something.' He said 'what needs to be done.
- qwph 18y agoI couldn't see any mention of the time it took to build the device, but I'd hazard a guess that the lifespan of a 6lb baby with failed kidneys could be measured in hours, which would seem to imply that the design was reasonably straightforward. Not to devalue the doctor's work though. He did save someone's life.
- jedc 18y agoI'm really surprised that the NHS let it happen!
- jedc 18y agoTo clarify, the NHS is a VERY risk averse organisation. And a home-built dialysis machine is a very risky machine to build and use. Well done to the doc.
- a-priori 18y agoI think even a risk averse organization would realize that when the options are A) baby will die or B) baby may be hurt by untested machine, option B is clearly better.
- jedc 18y agoUnfortunately, when they might have to shell out millions if the baby dies after using an untested medical device, that's not an easy thing for them to see.
- andyjenn 18y ago...had to add somethng here as I am a big fan of the NHS. In an increasingly litigious profession, the doctor must've known the consequences had something gone wrong and acted in spite of those career threatening risks - shows true courage. I hope (although doubt) this helps to stop the practice of defensive medicine where lawyers' concerns take priority over patients' needs. Yeah, its a little off topic, but visting a hospital always puts my building a web-application into perspective!
- jedc 18y agoI'm also a fan of the NHS, but also try to recognize where it (like any organisation) fails. Very courageous, and incredible initiative by the doc! (I can imagine a number of docs thinking about how they could do it, but this guy actually made it happen.)
- swombat 18y agoDr McGyver?
- smhinsey 18y agoIf I'm not mistaken, there actually was a McGuyver episode where he made a dialysis machine out of spare parts.
- stcredzero 18y agoThe headline makes this sound like MacGyver, which it's not. But still awesome!
- occam 18y agoYou would think that someone is already manufacturing infant-sized dialysis machiness. Throughout the story they emphasize that NHS has no such machines, never quite saying if hospitals elsewhere have them. Is that because NHS just refuses to buy any?
- flipbrad 18y agoa true hacker. inspiring stuff.