Greetings, friends, from the exciting world of Internal Medicine! That’s right - to the best of my knowledge, I have survived my surgery rotation, and all of its responsibilities, privileges, and awesomeness.
I have to admit that I liked surgery a lot more than I thought I would. The hours are intense, to be certain, but I got to do some truly amazing things, things I never thought I would be comfortable doing. For example:
- I scrubbed in to or observed around 40 procedures over the course of the month.
- I took five overnight calls.
- I participated in a trauma surgery involving a ruptured bladder - I got to put my finger inside a human bladder.
- I learned how to steer a laparoscopic camera, and got pretty competent at it - I only got yelled at (on average) twice during each gallbladder surgery!
- I scrubbed into a surgery that started after midnight.
- I worked with very friendly patients, who were very patient with me as I learned.
- I found some residents and attendings that were excellent teachers, and really enjoyed working with almost everyone I met.
It really is as intense as two months could be outside of, say, Kabul. I took call on my first day in the hospital - feet to the fire, never mind that nobody told me that I was going to need a change of underwear and a toothbrush on my first day of work. And yeah, I did get socked in the face by a sundowning old lady that night… which kind of sucked. But for the most part, surgery was REALLY, REALLY fun, and I find myself missing it, now that I’ve arrived at the slower pace that internal medicine seems to take.
I wouldn’t trade the hours on IM for anything right now, though!
