Why do doctors have to remove appendix before going to Antarctica?

For scientists or tourists, they can go to Antarctica normally. However, for doctors, they will have to undergo a minor surgery to remove their appendix before going there.

If you're planning to visit Australia's Antarctic research stations during the long, cold and isolated winter, there are a number of things you need to consider and check before you go.

And, if you're a doctor , that checklist will have one more item - or rather, your body will have to remove one. That's an appendectomy , which is, in fact, mandatory for all doctors wintering at research stations in Antarctica.

This "appendectomy" rule dates back to 1950 when an Australian doctor suffered from appendicitis on Heard Island.

Antarctica is the driest place on Earth. Or rather, the McMurdo Valleys are dry here, and some areas have not seen rain or snow for 2 million years.

Appendicitis is an inflammation of a small organ attached to your large intestine. It's not usually fatal, but it's quite common, affecting an estimated 5 to 9 out of every 100 people in the United States.

And when appendicitis strikes the body, it can be devastating: It's often severe, sudden, and can get worse within hours.  It requires surgical intervention before the appendix can burst and cause a serious infection that leads to potentially fatal peritonitis.

For most Antarctic explorers, when they develop appendicitis, there is always a doctor available at the research station – there is only one doctor at each station , as in the case of Jack Starr, the cook at Heard Island, who was operated on by Dr. Otto Rec in October 1951. But if the doctor himself has appendicitis, things suddenly become much more complicated.

The first person to encounter this situation was Dr. Serge Udovikoff at Heard Island, just over a year before Starr's dramatic surgery, in July 1950.

According to news reports at the time, Dr. Serge Udovikoff was considering performing surgery on himself—an extremely nerve-wracking idea, since at the time, no doctor was known to have successfully performed an appendectomy on his own.

However, in the end, Dr. Serge Udovikoff did not have to do it himself because the Australian naval ship HMAS Australia (II) was mobilized in time to evacuate Dr. Serge Udovikoff to the nearest mainland medical center. However, the movement of this ship at that time was very difficult.

Technically, all 24 time zones are present in Antarctica, as their boundaries converge at a point at both poles.

In addition to the uncomfortable conditions caused by winds gusting up to 65 knots, snow and hail, the ship had difficulty with water supplies due to increased levels of plankton in the sea.

Later, the requirement for doctors to remove appendixes when going to Antarctica was established. But other countries did not follow suit, in April 1961, Dr. Leonid Rogozov at the research station at Novolazarevskaya on the Antarctic continent, also encountered a similar situation, but the whole rescue operation did not go as smoothly as Udovikoff.

He diagnosed himself with appendicitis on April 29. The other research stations were quite far away and there were no planes operating at the time, and on April 30, when he began to notice signs of peritonitis, a huge blizzard appeared outside.

Since Rogozov was the only medical staff at the research station at the time, he had no choice but to perform the operation on himself. With the help of two assistants, local anesthetic, and a mirror, he began to operate on himself. The first incision was made at 22:15 Moscow time.

The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was minus 89.2 degrees Celsius, recorded in Antarctica at Russia's Vostok station on July 21, 1983.

"I often had to raise my head to feel better, and sometimes I had to work purely on feeling ," he recalled in a 1962 article in the Soviet Antarctic Expedition Information Bulletin.

"The general weakness became severe after 30-40 minutes, and dizziness began to appear, so it was necessary to take a short break to rest. After removing the appendix, antibiotics were administered into the peritoneal cavity and the wound was tightly sutured. The surgery was completed at midnight on April 30."

Within two weeks he had recovered and was able to perform his normal duties.

More than a year after the historic operation, the Soviet team of experts left Antarctica. On May 29, 1962, they arrived at the port of Leningrad. Without waiting, Rogozov immediately went to work. Until the end of his life, he worked and taught at the Department of Surgery of the Leningrad Medical Institute.

Considered the first case of successful self-surgery in a harsh environment, Rogozov became a symbol of determination and will to survive. In particular, he firmly refused all honors with the reason: "It's just a normal thing like anything else".

Obviously, this is not the situation that the experts here wanted to encounter. And after Rogozov's case, other countries officially applied the "appendectomy" regulation for doctors .