Today I had the amazing opportunity to job shadow an anesthesiologist at St. Joseph's Hospital where I volunteer on my days off. I shadowed a woman named Christina Szigeti and she allowed me some AMAZING opportunities. I was there from 6:30 a.m. until about 5:30 p.m. and I loved every minute of it! (be warned, it's kind of a long blog filled with medical jargon, and, I won't be offended if you don't read it all...I'm just so excited I had to write it all down).
I tried to summarize my day through photos of what my view was like all day, and let me tell you, I was granted INCREDIBLE views!
To start off, I sat in on a lumbar fusion of L4-L5. I spent most of the time during the surgery watching, listening and taking in all that Christina does on a daily basis, but got a good chunk of time to watch the surgeon at work. Christina is a favorite in the OR's, I can tell, and she is very skilled at her work (of course, she's the only one I've ever seen in action :). The lumbar fusion was really neat to see, but I have to admit, it was not nearly as exciting as some of my other events later in the day!
The next surgery gave me an opportunity I didn't think I would have today. I observed a quadruple bypass surgery. I got to stand right by the head of the patient with Christina and I literally had the same view that you see in this picture (actually it was a little closer than the image shows!). It was incredible! The greatest part, was that the cardiac surgeon is nicknamed "the professor" for a reason---he likes to teach. So, the whole time he was going over what he was doing, quizzing me on basic cardio anatomy and letting me have an amazing view.
The next few patients weren't actually Christina's but she was busy doing pre-op for "less interesting" cases as she put it, so she introduced me to her coworkers and they were kind enough to let me tag along.
I watched an ACL repair from start to finish, and just like I thought, orthopedics is most certainly "human carpentry". I think if I took a picture half way through and showed it to the 21 year old undergoing the surgery, she might freak out. When they drilled a hole straight through her knee and left it in there while preparing the "new" ACL, it looked like a scene from a horror film or something (it was AWESOME!). But, the inside of the knee joint looked more like what you would see while snorkeling or scuba diving. The articular cartilage and the meniscus are beautiful, white, and smooth surfaces that appear like sea anemone or something. The entire joint is filled with fluid and the motion of the fluid and floating cartilage that is getting cleaned away is actually really beautiful. It was fascinating.
Next I got to go to the GI lab and watch an endoscopy---I realized that I hope to never have one of them! Yuck :( The patient had some serious asthma and COPD issues, so that made Christina's job with anesthesia more difficult for sure.
While in the GI lab, someone from the pain clinic heard there was a pre-med student hanging around and offered to let me watch an epidural steroid injection for chronic sciatic pain. It was incredibly interesting, but again it topped my charts of procedures I DO NOT want to have done any time soon :) I met the patient right before the procedure, and he said he'd try not to cry, but not to judge him if he did...and after watching, I know why he would!
Then, I got to see what I imagine to be the most expensive piece of equipment of the day. I got to watch part of a robotic vaginal hysterectomy with a Da Vinci Robot. I again, had an incredible view and was fascinated by the procedure. The precision, the clarity of the images and the skill of the surgeon were all exciting to watch.
Lastly, I think I ended the day with the most exciting procedure of all. I got to watch a C-section. Like everyone always says, it's incredibly fast and also incredibly exciting. This was my view---so exciting!
Interestingly, this patient was having her third child and wanted to get her tubes tied, so they did it all in one procedure so they wouldn't have to open her up again. And, also because it's a catholic hospital it isn't permitted to do "tube tying" procedures. You cannot have your tubes tied unless you are already opened up for another procedure, and if they do it then, it is not called by it's normal name of "tubal ligation" but it is given a different name of "uterine isolation". Somehow by giving it a different name and doing it at the same time as something else, the standard is still in effect.
So, that in essence, sums up my day today. That was more a list of the things I saw and I didn't even get into the subtleties of the day, the conversations, and the procedures...but I won't make you read all of that (I saved that for Tom over dinner :).
I tried to summarize my day through photos of what my view was like all day, and let me tell you, I was granted INCREDIBLE views!
To start off, I sat in on a lumbar fusion of L4-L5. I spent most of the time during the surgery watching, listening and taking in all that Christina does on a daily basis, but got a good chunk of time to watch the surgeon at work. Christina is a favorite in the OR's, I can tell, and she is very skilled at her work (of course, she's the only one I've ever seen in action :). The lumbar fusion was really neat to see, but I have to admit, it was not nearly as exciting as some of my other events later in the day!
The next surgery gave me an opportunity I didn't think I would have today. I observed a quadruple bypass surgery. I got to stand right by the head of the patient with Christina and I literally had the same view that you see in this picture (actually it was a little closer than the image shows!). It was incredible! The greatest part, was that the cardiac surgeon is nicknamed "the professor" for a reason---he likes to teach. So, the whole time he was going over what he was doing, quizzing me on basic cardio anatomy and letting me have an amazing view.
The next few patients weren't actually Christina's but she was busy doing pre-op for "less interesting" cases as she put it, so she introduced me to her coworkers and they were kind enough to let me tag along.I watched an ACL repair from start to finish, and just like I thought, orthopedics is most certainly "human carpentry". I think if I took a picture half way through and showed it to the 21 year old undergoing the surgery, she might freak out. When they drilled a hole straight through her knee and left it in there while preparing the "new" ACL, it looked like a scene from a horror film or something (it was AWESOME!). But, the inside of the knee joint looked more like what you would see while snorkeling or scuba diving. The articular cartilage and the meniscus are beautiful, white, and smooth surfaces that appear like sea anemone or something. The entire joint is filled with fluid and the motion of the fluid and floating cartilage that is getting cleaned away is actually really beautiful. It was fascinating.
Next I got to go to the GI lab and watch an endoscopy---I realized that I hope to never have one of them! Yuck :( The patient had some serious asthma and COPD issues, so that made Christina's job with anesthesia more difficult for sure.While in the GI lab, someone from the pain clinic heard there was a pre-med student hanging around and offered to let me watch an epidural steroid injection for chronic sciatic pain. It was incredibly interesting, but again it topped my charts of procedures I DO NOT want to have done any time soon :) I met the patient right before the procedure, and he said he'd try not to cry, but not to judge him if he did...and after watching, I know why he would!
Then, I got to see what I imagine to be the most expensive piece of equipment of the day. I got to watch part of a robotic vaginal hysterectomy with a Da Vinci Robot. I again, had an incredible view and was fascinated by the procedure. The precision, the clarity of the images and the skill of the surgeon were all exciting to watch.
Lastly, I think I ended the day with the most exciting procedure of all. I got to watch a C-section. Like everyone always says, it's incredibly fast and also incredibly exciting. This was my view---so exciting!
Interestingly, this patient was having her third child and wanted to get her tubes tied, so they did it all in one procedure so they wouldn't have to open her up again. And, also because it's a catholic hospital it isn't permitted to do "tube tying" procedures. You cannot have your tubes tied unless you are already opened up for another procedure, and if they do it then, it is not called by it's normal name of "tubal ligation" but it is given a different name of "uterine isolation". Somehow by giving it a different name and doing it at the same time as something else, the standard is still in effect.So, that in essence, sums up my day today. That was more a list of the things I saw and I didn't even get into the subtleties of the day, the conversations, and the procedures...but I won't make you read all of that (I saved that for Tom over dinner :).
Looks pretty amazing! I must say, you saw more surgery in one day than I did in my whole surgical rotation. Guess that's what South Dakota gets you:) Way to go get some experience & see what the medical world is all about!!!
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