Atlas of Orthopaedic Surgical Exposures. Christopher Jordan

      PREFACE

      This book grew out of my frustration as a resident and also my love of surgical anatomy. As a resident, I would frequently go to the library to review the anatomy of a surgical approach prior to a case. I would refresh my memory about the location of all the critical structures and the landmarks I should be looking for during the approach. Then in the operating room, I would find that the anatomy I was actually looking at was not the same as that pictured in the books. Most of the books were simply drawings. The few photographic atlases that were available used embalmed specimens, which had different colors and all were predissected. In reality, once you are deep to the subcutaneous tissue, you generally have a sheet of fascia covering everything so that all those landmarks so clearly depicted in anatomy books are, in fact, not visible until you dissect them out. The whole point of doing a surgical approach, however, is not to dissect them out but to simply go directly to where you want to go. This book is also a photographic atlas but it uses fresh cadaver specimens so that the colors are not distorted. Additionally, there is no attempt to separate out structures. For some of the approaches, therefore, the pictures do not look as pretty as they do in other books, but they are much more realistic and accurately depict what you see. The text describes the landmarks and how to avoid trouble for each approach.

      This book then will give you, the reader, an accurate depiction of what you can expect to find as you go through an approach. It should, therefore, better prepare you for your surgery. One of my favorite surgical mottoes is that a good surgeon can get out of trouble but a better surgeon stays out of trouble. A large part of staying out of trouble is knowing where to go and where not to go. Ideally, you would expose the layers of an approach like turning pages of a book with sure and efficient dissection. This book will be an important tool in teaching you how to do that. The difference between a good fast surgeon and a good slow surgeon is knowledge of anatomy. Your interest in surgical anatomy is to be commended. Your feedback on how to improve this book would be appreciated.

       Christopher Jordan, M.D.