Ever since I had picked up a scalpel for anatomy
dissection (okay…and maybe started watching Grey’s Anatomy), I had known that my
future career was destined to be a surgeon. Of course, I say these thoughts now
and I’ll probably end up being a Urologist. But, when we visited the hospital
to shadow surgeons, I had confirmed the reality. The first surgery I whitnessed
was a laproscopic gallbladder removal. At first, I was slightly disappointed,
as I had wanted a more bloody, open cut surgery to watch. Since the future of
medicine lies in heading more towards non-invasive surgeries, I had decided to
give it a fair shot. I was pleasantly surprised to see the surgery, on
three-dimensional screen, where the physicians would wear glasses to help give
better spacial vision. About the first 20 minutes of the surgery was about the
attempt of the surgeon to even grasp the swollen gallbladder with his tongs.
The remainder of the time was spend separating the organ from its neighbors,
using a burning tool, since cutting (as it was explained to me) leaves more
blunt edges and burning seals the ends together. Since I had already taken
anatomy, I was going through the surgery, attempting to name the arteries as I
saw them on the screen. After about 2.5 hours, a relatively short surgical
time, the patient was then woken up. I had always had the understanding that
patients were allowed to wake up on their own in their recovery room. Instead,
the anesthesiologist had removed the anesthesia and proceeded to call out the
patients name, poking and shaking him until he woke. My intial thoughts were
that this seemed like a bad idea, considering that the patient still had his
intubation tube. Like I suspected, when the patient began to gain
consciousness, he began choking, his face turning bright red gasping for air.
In a calm manner, the nurses slowly removed the tube and wheeled the patient
into his recovery room.
The second surgery I watched was removal of specific lobes
of the liver, along with cysts. The patient was believed to continuously grow
tumors on his liver, perhaps due to a cancer, and was needed to be removed. The
head nurse had shown me the patient’s pre-op file, explaining to me everything
that was needed to be checked before operation: from confirming the DOB to any
physical issues, such as diabetes that are presented beforehand. Then, the
anesthesiologist had placed the patient under. The nurse had allowed the
medical student who was with me intubate the patient, while the nurse motioned
for me to look down the throat to see the airway. The nurse had then explained
to me, in detail, how to place an intravenous catheder into the jugular vein,
as if I were supposed to perform it on my own right after. Once the patient was
sterile, the surgeons had walked in with their team. Perhaps one of the most
notable interactions was between this team. The surgeon worked closely with the
assistants and technitians, with them having to practically predict what the
surgeon was going to do next, to have the instrument ready to go. The anesthesiologist,
I was surprised, was far more hands on than I anticipated; constantly checking
vitals and rearranging the dosage of medicine given (my previous thought being
that they only sit down and flip through a magazine as the surgery was going
on). The surgeon himself this time was inherently interested in my presence in
America and how I felt about Trump’s election into office and how it relates to
China. No, he didn’t want to know so much about the ACA or Trump’s personality
characteristics. Only China. After about 6 hours of standing, hovering on a
step stool over the patients head, the surgery was complete.
In continuation from my previous blog post, my illness that
I had contracted during Nordeney had worsened. It was probably not the best
idea to be in a hospital, but how often was I going to get a chance to be in
the same OR as a surgeon? So I had spent a large remainder of the week fighting
what had become bronchitis, coughing and hacking my way through classes, where
we learned about medicine that was healed through meditations. I had never been
a meditator myself, and I had attempted yoga many a times before, but it comes
and goes in phases. I believe my mind runs a million miles a minute to have
even several seconds of “quietness”. I even have to begin daydreaming before I
fall asleep. Before I knew it, it was the weekend and I was headed to Milan,
Italy and Zurich, Switzerland. Milan was beyond my expecations, as I had never
really had an appeal to Italy, despite the popularity. I did the usual, eat a
cannoli for breakfast (wait, that’s not normal), a gelato for lunch and was
even too full to finish my carbonara eaten at a family owned Italian restaurant
with fantastic Italian red wine. Next thing I knew, I was on a bus ride to
Zurich, which the views on the bus were probably better than the ones in the
city…oops. The biggest downfall of this trip was that we went on a Sunday. As
Zurich is mostly town-based, it was difficult to truly enjoy the city to its
full potential since everything was closed. The scenery is still beautiful and
the environment was incredibly relaxing, I would just recommend to others to
visit on a proper business day. I wrapped up the trip with a fondue dinner (A
swiss cultural experience I was unaware of), in which I ate perhaps the best
balance of mixed cheeses I had ever had. Once more, there are iPhone pictures that the
inner photographer in me believes is sufficient enough to avoid paying money
for a full DLSR.
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