On Friday I finished my first general surgery rotation. This last rotation was 4 weeks long and it was just about the most amazing thing I've ever had the opportunity to do. Despite getting up at 4am for a month straight, having severa 30+ hour days and practically living at the hospital, I loved this rotation. I was a little nervous starting out on this rotation, but once I figured out my role and what I needed to do to learn and do well on this rotation I really started to enjoy myself.I got to see some amazing procedures and learn from some fantastic surgeons. My favorite surgeries were exploratory laparotomies. These surgeries are usually emergent and done to basically explore the abdomen and figure out what's wrong with the patient and then fix it. I know this may sound gross to some of you, but the patient is opened up basically from the bottom of their ribcage to their pubic bone and then you just take a look around! (It's a lot more complicated than the description I gave but you get the idea.) It was amazing to see the human anatomy in this living, breathing person; it was also pretty cool to see what could go wrong and then watch the surgeons correct it.
This rotation was over all to quickly and left me wanting to see more. On the last day of my surgery rotation, my surgeon told me that #1--I should consider becoming a surgeon and #2--any time I had some free time on another service to definitely come and scrub in on cases with them. I'm really hoping I'll be able to take her up on that offer so I can see if surgery really is for me! I am still surprised by how much I loved this rotation and even more surprised that I'm considering spending the rest of my life doing this! Hopefully I'll be able to figure some things out in the coming months.
This month I'm on Pediatric ER which is basically a vacation month compared to surgery. I have 12 eight hour shifts spread over four weeks, 2 ambulance ride-alongs, and a scattering of Grand Rounds and random lectures that make up my month. I was running some errands this afternoon since I wasn't scheduled to work and I felt like I was playing hooky or something from work! It's weird being free in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday! I'm enjoying getting caught up on some sleep and some other things this month though.
Mostly I'm very excited that in just 2 1/2 weeks I get to go HOME!! I haven't been home since early August and I'm ready to see my family and spend some quality time with them.
I hope you all are having a great Christmas season and each get to spend some time with your family and friends! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
