Eli5 why is it that if I cut myself with a knife I bleed like crazy, but when a surgeon cuts into a chest, removes the ribs to perform a major surgery you don’t see all that much blood comparatively?

Question

Eli5 why is it that if I cut myself with a knife I bleed like crazy, but when a surgeon cuts into a chest, removes the ribs to perform a major surgery you don’t see all that much blood comparatively?

In: 562

Answer 1

I’m a scrub nurse in theatre.

We use tourniquets for limb surgery. We use electricity to cauterise tissue/small vessels. We temporarily clamp major vessels. We use clotting agents (both IV like TXA and direct wound agents like Floseal). We use harmonic instruments to either dissect or fuse tissue which is less traumatic.

TL:dr, we have shit tonnes of options to decrease bleeding.