I have made it through my first day and my first call of general surgery at St.Paul's Hospital. That always makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Technically, I am half way through my surgery rotation, the first two weeks I was doing radiation oncology (which isn't really surgery at all) and then I did pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital. Now I will be at St. Paul's until Christmas.
Some observations:
It is very festive downtown these days. In other circumstances, I might find such holiday propaganda obnoxious, but it just makes it so much cheerier at 6:30 in the morning. St. Paul's has this huge, crazy light display as a part of their fund-raising campaign, and every morning, I walk through a tunnel of lighted stars to enter the hospital. It is quite magical really, and then I get to the other side, and instead of Narnia or a Secret Garden, there is a hospital full of colons that have cancer, or are blocked, or bleeding, or dying, or non-existent.
I quite like surgery, but am pretty clear that I don't want to be a surgeon.
I got new work shoes last week. Clark's unstructured - I don't know what the other 9/10 medical students say, but this one highly recommends them. I only wished I had known sooner about these wonder shoes. Wow.
Surgery as a medical student requires physical and mental stamina, in roughly equal parts. Pediatric surgery (which is my only other comparison) is small, and clean, and the retractors are just tiny little things. Open abdominal surgery in an adult on the other hand, is big, and messy, and the retractors are huge, and require a considerable amount of force. And, it is our job to hold them, strongly, and blindly, for sometimes hours. In between trying to mentally direct more oxygen to my burning muscles, pumping my calves to prevent blood pooling, and trying to decide whether it was my breath or the inside of my mask that smelled so funny, I took small trips to my happy place (which is where I think of crochet projects I would work on if I had time, or my bed - mostly those two things). The surgeon thanked me for my hard work and acknowledged that I couldn't see anything, and I really appreciated that. It's nice to get thanked.
1 comment:
There will be many first days in medicine, all memorable for one reason or another and indeed there will be many more accomplishments! Some will as magical as shining stars and others will be as practical as sensible shoes!!!
My sense of you through it all, is that each day will always get the best work that you are capable of at that given time...even if you are wishing that you were somewhere else or doing something else! For that...you should always be thanked...if not by someone else...at least by yourself for knowing that you are such an amazing human being!
Love always, Mum
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