AFTER going viral a month or so ago, following a Twitter post of him removing a fruit-sized growth from a patient and bringing awareness for Malaysians to get a medical checkup for any odd growths, Dr Mohd Shaiful Nizam is back once again.
This time around, Nizam – an ENT specialist – had to operate on a seven-year-old child who had swallowed a 50 cent coin.
Nizam pointed out that a major worry for ENT specialists such as him is when a child swallows a foreign object and it enters the respiratory tract, instead of the esophagus where food enters.
“If it enters the respiratory tract, the patient will suffer from breathing difficulties that could lead to death,” he explained.
Due to the 50 cent coin entering the esophagus, Nizam managed to extract the object without any complications. The operation only took a few minutes under general anesthesia.
“For the record, this is the biggest value coin I’ve had to remove compared to previous patients. Most of the coins from before were either ten or 20 cent coins,” Nizam noted.
The specialist ended the Twitter thread advising parents to keep an eye on their children when they’re near easily-swallowed foreign objects.
