When 49-year-old Marjorie Pearson went into surgery three weeks ago at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), it was not lost on her and the medical team that the high-risk brain procedure could go horribly wrong.
Dr Dwaine Cooke, consultant neurosurgeon at KPH, and a team of anaesthesiologists, residents and specialist nurses were about to pull off a first-of-its-kind brain surgery in the island’s public health sector.
As they painstakingly conducted the craniotomy – removing part of Pearson’s skull to operate on her brain – the patient talked to and responded well to the team of medics as they removed a tumour during the hours-long procedure, even bursting into song at one point.
“With the surgery considered groundbreaking, a team of four anaesthesiologists, who worked closely with the neurosurgery team, which included myself and my junior staff (residents), four other doctors, and specialist nurses working hand in hand, carried out the surgery,” Cooke told The Sunday Gleaner.
When Cooke was called, after consultations, emergency surgery was recommended and the medics would then start making their assessments to perform the operation, the first in the public sector in the island.
