One Operating Room. Nine Hours. Four Surgeries.

After our time in Norderney, I went to Aurich to go visit a family friend. Her name is Annika. My time visiting her was great! I really enjoyed it. So, you may be asking how I know her. Well, about nine years ago, she lived in my hometown of Mount Vernon, Texas for a year as part of the Rotary International Youth Exchange. During this time, she lived with a host family that my family knows, which is how I know her. Throughout the years, she has kept in touch with her host family. In fact, she says she talks to them at least once a week. She is a doctor, an anesthesiologist. She is only 29 years old and has already been a doctor for a little over 4 years, which I find to be amazing. She couldn’t ask off work on Friday, so she asked me if I would like to come along and observe and I was like hell yeah. So let me tell y’all about my day at the hospital because it was an experience I won’t forgot. When we got to the hospital at 6:50 AM, we changed into blue scrubs and attended the daily meeting. In this meeting, there were 12 anesthesiologists with the head anesthesiologist running the meeting. He basically went over the schedule for the day, and the meeting took only about 10 minutes. After the meeting, we went to the surgical center. There we changed scrubs again. This time we changed into green scrubs (green scrubs are only for the surgery center) and included a surgical cap and mask.  In the surgery center, there were 5 operating rooms, each with its own preparation room.  For the whole day, we were in OR 2. She explained to me that each anesthesiologist is usually assigned to one OR for their shift. Our first surgery was a knee joint replacement, and our patient was a woman in her late sixties. We entered the preparation room and waited for the patient to be rolled into the room. In the preparation room, the anesthesiologist (my friend) and a nurse anesthetist started to administer the general anesthesia. Once the patient was unconscious, my friend started to insert an incubation tube (my friend allowed me to help during this part of the process for two of the four patients). While this was going on, the adjoining room (the OR) was being prepared for the surgery. Once the patient was unconscious and the OR was ready, the patient was rolled into the OR, connected to the OR anesthetic machine, and soon afterwards the surgery began. In the OR room, there was one anesthesiologist, two surgeons, and one nurse present. I observed the whole surgery being only a couple of feet away; at some times, I was allowed to get even closer and be only a few inches away. Witnessing that knee joint replacement was absolutely amazing! After the surgery was done, the anesthesiology started to bring the patient back to consciousness. My friend told me that patients cannot leave the OR until they wake up. When the patient woke up, she was rolled into what my friend called “the waking room,” which is a place all patients are taken to after surgery. She told me that this “waking room” is where all patients are watched by nurses for a certain time to make sure the patient is okay. Once we took the patient to the “waking room” and went back to the preparation room, the next patient was already there with the nurse anesthetist. Our second surgery was a bone removal surgery near the hip bone, and our patient was a middle-aged man. Our third surgery was a hand surgery in which an infection was being removed, and our patient was an 18-year-old teenager. Our fourth surgery was an close-up surgery near the Achilles heel that had reopened, and our patient was another middle-aged men. During all of these surgeries, the process of administering general anesthesia was similar. And all of these surgeries were exquisite in their own way. I enjoyed being able to watch the surgeons operate; being able to watch their suture work was amazing. After our last surgery, we still had a little bit of time before her shift ended; it was from 6:50 AM to 3:50 PM. She says that when this happens, they go around to see if there is anything to be done. She evaluated a patient's file, soon-to-come surgery, and had a consultation with the patient to assess what kind of anesthesia should be administered. After this, our day was done. That day was truly amazing. I never thought I’d be experiencing this in Germany.