Grey's Anatomy is Child's Play

    This week was probably the one I was looking the most forward to because this was the week we got to watch surgeries!! With any other group of people around my age, I'm not too sure how great this would go over but I've honestly never seen a group more eager to stand through a five hour open heart surgery. This truly confirms that I've picked the correct future profession, that there couldn't have been a better trip I could have gone on, and that there are others just like me!!! I was lucky enough to get picked to go watch cardio surgeries.  I was able to watch from pre-op all the way to post-op and it's nothing like Grey's Anatomy... it's wayyyy cooler in real life! The first surgery I observed was a coronary artery bypass.  I was interested from beginning to end and was able to learn a lot from the anesthesiologist and the surgeon.  I had always wanted to watch the sternum being sawed open because I knew it happened but had never seen it.  I was also very interested in how it was going to get put back together.  It turns out that they suture the bone back together with wires made out of surgical metal.  They have the pierce the bone with the thick wires and pull really hard to push the two halves back together.  I realized that as a surgeon you have to be gentle at times but also aggressive at others.  You also have to be able to work well under pressure.  At one point in the surgery, blood started to squirt everywhere and the surgeon acted very calmly (cursing in Germany under his breath) and fixed the problem.  In the middle of the open heart surgery, another surgeon came in and began opening the woman's leg above the inside of her ankle.  I later realized that they were using the vein from the leg, which I later found out was the saphanbous vein, in order to perform the bypass.  They were going to attach one end of the vein to the aorta and the other to the coronary artery.  Another thing I found interesting was the fact that everyone had told me how terrible cautery smelt and that I was going to faint from the smell.  At first it wasn't the best smell I'd every experienced but I quickly got over it.  I didn't feel like fainting though, I was too intrigued with watching the surgeon. After following the patient and anesthesiologist through post-op, I was able to sit down with him and he explained more about the surgery.  Then he took me to lunch at the hospital cafeteria, which was so so nice, and asked what my plan was for school and what areas of surgery I was interested in. I told him I was interested in either cardio or trauma.  After lunch he took me through the trauma area and showed me one of the only emergency rooms in the world that has a CT scanner in one of it’s trauma rooms.  This was very expensive but it could possibly save the patient’s life by shaving off minutes in the time it would take to move the patient to a different room and back to find out what’s wrong with them.  He also told me of some of the stories he had experienced in that very room pertaining to trauma cases.  There were some good ones where they were able to save the patients but also some bad ones that ended with a puddle of blood on the floor and the patient dead.  This is the reality of medicine, there is only so much we can do for the body but it isn’t always guaranteed to work and not all stories are happy.  This was something I had known but was very important I hear in person.  It’s something I’m always going to have to deal with in my career but after much thought, I’ve decided it’s still something I want to do because I want to be able to have the ability to help someone even if it takes all I have to save just one life.

    Later that day, the last surgery I was able to observe was a bypass with an aortic valve replacement made out of bovine.  This was really really interesting and just absolutely amazed me with what biomedical engineering can do for the body.  Medicine intrigues me so much because everything just blows my mind.  Somethings I would never think would even be possible but with medicine they are and I just want to learn as much as I possibly can about all of it.

    

    In conclusion, I think I’ve found the perfect profession for me. Now just to decide what I want to specialize in.

Also here's a picture from my weekend trip to Paris! It was way more than I was expecting and is definitely a must see at some point in your life.