Halfway thru' Surgery

And loving it :D.

(If you don't include the times where I feel like there's not enough hours in the day to finish up assignments - not that there are many, but when hospital time is such that by the time I'm home im tired... its hard to get the motivation to read stuff up - or do assignments. Solution : stay in hospital a bit longer to finish up those ..........)

But seriously, surgery - as an attachment - is fun. I've never felt this much as part of the healthcare team in any other run -

Lots of stuff :
1) clerking patients in - students' admission forms (history and physical examination) are used as part and parcel of hospital records - and taken seriously! My houseman countersigns the respi/cardio/abdo examination findings and annotates some bits on the history, but doesn't rewrite .... its much more involved than say, medicine where they seem to be, oh, nice, you've done an admission - now let me write up what I found, and you just keep that for your own learning.

Was a bit unnerving the first time i discovered that they do trust us, somewhat - where I wrote in the PC : 5 day hx of acute abdo pain .... the consultant quoted that during handover. (unnerving because on the reg note it was 3 day... was a matter of interpretation of the story, the first pain started 5 days ago, but 3 days ago was the start of unremitting pain)

2) Discharge summaries .... has to be done, and i know ill get utterly sick of these - but first time i do them is here (and not in acute med or psych, which most ppl seem to do)

3) Procedures! Taking bloods (well, once. ><), ABI, assisting in theater - this is especially so after hours where its the surgeon, the scrub nurse, and you... even if it is just holding retractors, pressing the cautery button, cutting stuture ends etc there's a heck a lot of attention involved in helping and not getting into the surgeon's way - but they let you know quick enough if you arent doing anything right.

4) Presenting patients - Well, to be honest I'm still not competent at this. At all. Beginning to dread the moments where the reg would be like "Pretend I'm on the phone...." because i'm still not used to using the correct terms and i handwave alot of stuff. The difference? "Uh, the wound looks really bad." vs "The wound is inflammed and there seems to be a pus-filled abcess, which is hot and tender to the touch"

5) Teaching and Learning. Lots and Lots and LOTS of this. Quizzes about everything. And from pretty much everyone. Was like this in acute med, too - but it seems to be more... pressured? here (or maybe there i actually remembered more stuff, because here i feel like im guessing the answers alllllll the time)

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Surgeons seem to spend a LOT of time in the hospital. Even when they aren't on call/acutes.

Its fun. I dont know if its for me, though - I'm still not sure if i have the commitment to work as hard as everyone in surgery seems to be working...