Last Week of Surgery, some regret

So this week, I only had two days of surgery. Two days left on the trauma team. Two days of introducing myself as Robert, the medical student on your surgical team.

A few weeks ago, I would've said: no way, surgery is not an option. they're all pretentious asses who couldn't care less about their patients and would slice and dice to solve any problem.

This definitely is not the case. I have learned to appreciate surgery and the surgical approach especially when it comes to trauma. See, trauma is both simple and complicated. A patient comes in with any number of abrasions, breaks, bleeds, etc but the approach is very simple. ABC that Jazz: Airway, Breathing, Circulation --> disability, extremities....

Monday wasn't too crazy , few things here and there. I got to see a Swan-Ganz catheter placed , that was actually pretty cool since they are putting them in less and less and the whole placement is based on the pressure waves that are generated as you advance the catheter through the atrium, into the ventricle and then the PA and hopefully wedges nicely into a pulmonary capillary.

Tuesday was my last day, all I came in to do was round on my patients. I actually spent some time explaining an IVC filter to a patient and really connecting with her. One thing that's hard to do is appreciate that feeling that perhaps a patient doesn't know what all is going on and I sensed this, and I had a breakthrough. Mrs. "Smith" has a few questions and then she started asking me about my schooling and telling me about her family, it was a great way to end my surgical clerkship.

Wednesday we had our oral exam, I'm happy to say that I rocked out the Trauma cases. Our orals consists of three different docs giving us a variety of cases to work thought and do next step/management type questions. The resident doing trauma wasn't really able to stump me, gave me a "very good."

Thursday, I went and visited the 9th floor, kind of a farewell to the 9th floor nurse, a farewell in my last day as a member of the trauma team.


Farewell Surgery , perhaps you'll see me on a Trauma elective. You have the coolest docs and residents...