Putting Our Heads Together: Innovation in Conjoined Twin Surgery
Dr. Jesse Taylor and Dr. Gregory Heuer |
TEDxPenn
• April 2018
What do you get when you unite custom-made, 3D-printed devices, decades of combined medical training, and a solid partnership and flourishing friendship between two surgeons? Last year at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Gregory Heuer and Dr. Jesse A. Taylor, along with 30 individuals carried out a complex 11-hour surgery that separated a pair of conjoined twins—one of the earliest separations of craniopagus conjoined twins ever recorded. Innovating in surgery can be a difficult task, with unique problems specific to medicine. In order to accomplish this early separation all members of the care team were integrated from the beginning. Technology, such as computer generated distraction devices, were then applied that took advantage of the functional matrix and the normal healing process the young patient.