Surgery....check!

Surgery is finally over! It felt soooo long because there was winter break in between but I am SO glad it is over. The clerkship director was nice enough to email us yesterday just to say we passed. I don’t know my raw score yet but I don’t even care! This means I can put away all my surgery books, cross off another rotation, and move on. Up next is Neurology. Neuro is only 4 weeks at my school so I’m a bit nervous about not having a lot of  time to catch up/study. On the other hand, it will be nice to get through a rotation in half the amount of time it took to get through surgery.

I think I lucked out with surgery because I never had to scrub for more then 3 hours and though I disliked a lot of the people, nobody was too abusive. I got out by 5pm most days and on weekends, I got out by 10am! It was amazing. I didn’t get to do as much as I thought though. I was 4 weeks in before I got to close a port site and only on the last day did I cut/extract lipomas and suture people back up. That said, it was enough to make me think I want to do procedures in the future. There is something really satisfying about fixing stuff with your own two hands.

Things I liked about Surgery:
  •           Procedures; knot-tying, suturing, cutting
  •            Surprising amounts of internal medicine. Surgeon have to work up diseases just as much as IM docs and that was refreshing
  •           The prestige; it is a field few people will ever get the opportunity to see. To have patients so exposed on an operating table, to put your hands in someone you hardly know, and to fix them with your own hands is awe-inspiring
  •           The patients. I worked at the VA for 3 weeks and learned I really do like old people. I felt sorry for a lot of them but they were some of the funniest, sweetest, and bravest patients I’ve ever met


Things I disliked about Surgery:
  •          The people. I had a few attending I really liked but as a whole, I didn’t enjoy the people I worked with. I think they are all really stressed which made me stressed.
  •           The hierarchy. More then other specialties, there is a clear peaking order in Surgery and as the lowest person on the totem poll, I didn’t appreciate all the scut I was expected to do. I actually don’t mind writing notes, grabbing consents, etc but when people order you to do it and get mad when you didn’t know you had to do it, it makes you feel very undervalued (and unmotivated)
  •          The hours, number of years it’d take to finish training, lack of sleep, and irregular eating schedules. Need I say more?


To celebrate being done with surgery, Dave and I went snowshoeing (without snowshoes).  Guys….I am really out of shape! My entire body hurts and we only hiked 7miles. We also hosted game night yesterday, had lunch with my parents/sister today, and watched the Martian! So good and so fun! I am not ready for Neuro but so glad to be done with IM and Surgery now.



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