Today’s abdominal recovery surgeon is named Andy Posselt. He is holding an electric cauterizing wand, which looks like a cheap bank pen on a cord but functions like a scalpel. The wand both cuts and burns, so that as the incision is made, any vessels that are severed are simultaneously melted shut. The result is that there is a good deal less bleeding and a good deal more smoke and smell. It’s not a bad smell, but simply a seared-meat sort of smell. I want to ask Dr. Posselt whether he likes it, but I can’t bring myself to, so instead I ask whether he thinks it’s bad that I like the smell,
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