Wiped Out

Friends, it has been a while. Surgery rotation was such a wipe out for me. I feel completely exhausted having completed such a rigorous and demanding session. Well, at least I can easily cross off surgery from my list. I did have some time to scribble down a few thoughts during that time, so I've posted them below. They're not much, but again, surgery definitely squeezed the strength of my humanity into the size of a pulp. Pediatrics is much more humane and adjustable now, so hopefully my updates will be less hectic and sporadic. I have some fun things to say about pediatric neurology after my week seeing kids with seizures and headaches galore, so that's something to look forward to!

Healing with Steel It didn’t take very long for me to realize that I hated surgery. Outside of the operating room, I loathed every aspect that came with being a surgeon. Not that unprofessionalism doesn’t exist outside of surgeons; I think it’s just more manifested and stereotypical in this field. I felt disappointed at the lack of patient contact, and I often felt a frustrated discontentment when the team would flit off to another room before even listening to the patients’ responses. Most of the time, the team was out the door while the patient uttered a weak “thank you, doctor”. It left me with a deep anger and lack of respect for the team’s attitude towards patients. That is to say, it’s not that I haven’t seen patient and compassionate surgeons. I have. They’re just … the minority, I guess.And I’m not trying to paint a picture of the surgeon to be this steel-cut, cold creature that could care less for the patient. I have found that surgeons care for their patients in very different way. Their attentiveness and gentleness manifest through their operations - the precise and careful way they handle the patients speak bounds for the lack of action outside of the operating room. The way the surgeons correct their residents to be gentle on the tissue, the uncomfortable techniques they utilize to ensure maximized outcomes for the patients, the meticulous and even obsessive ways they close wounds to minimize scarring - they all speak of the desire to keep their patients safe and sound. It’s in the operating room that I see the true physician transform in surgeons. Nipple Bruises “Ms. ____, good morning. It’s the neurosurgery team. Can you give me a thumbs up?” It’s 5:45am, and we’re rounding on neurosurgery. The residents ascertain motor and sensory function for each groggy patient. Rather, they are pinching the patients’ shoulders and thighs as well as performing sternal rubs.As the patients grimace and writhe, I can’t help but hold in my unhappiness. As a budding physician in training, my understanding of treating patients was to alleviate their suffering and ailments, not to add to their pain. While I understand that it was necessary to adequately patients’ motor function and eliciting pain was most efficient, it seemed inhumane, and the residents lack of concern made it worse.Iatrogenic bruising is definitely a real thing. After a few nights at the hospital post-op, more than one of our patients developed bruising in their shoulders. It is true that bruises are merely a transient process that would well worth the positive outcomes, but I feel like there has to be a more humane way to disturb patients in the morning. Patient Wall The walls of a patient room can speak volumes of the life patients lead outside of this small, isolated circumstance. The Get-Well cards, posters, drawings, balloons, etc that pan the wall speak of the love and people present in the patients’ lives. The patients may not even be awake or aware sufficiently to appreciate these colorful cheers for the return of health, but their presence remains impactful. They state a personality and a humanity that cannot be unsaid, and they speak of the importance and individuality of the patient lying in bed. We are taught that our patients are not simply the sum of their symptoms, but in the busy life and never-ending lists of the hospital, it is easy to forget the history that imbues all of our patients. Especially on the surgical service, it is so easy to ignore the face to the operation when the blue drapes are cast, so easy to gloss over the concerns the patient may have, so easy to not see the worried, sleep-deprived faces of loved ones that are too afraid to crowd our presence in our lightning rounds. These walls should be a reminder to us that the groggy, barely-there patients that we rouse in the early hours of the morning are those with a history, with importance. In the operating room, where everything is sterilized and antiseptic, it is simple to cast away these clinging factors. It may not serve a difference in treatment knowing that our patient has four grandaughters in different parts of the country awaiting their grandma’s operating status, but it makes a difference, I believe, in the way we see and honor our patients. As humans.

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