Surgery Adventures of Student Doctor Nick

To the surprise of no one, Nick is mostly diggin' his surgery rotation so far. The days are long (approximately 5:30AM- 6-8PM) with a lot standing through surgeries and very little time to eat, but since his first real day he has been in the OR assisting with surgeries! So far I don't think he's stayed awake past 8:30PM and it's been a struggle to get there... man, is he beat by the end of the day!!  Some of his rotations have been busier/more hands on than others, with some of the teams being more accommodating to students/teaching than others, but all in all things are going well for him and he has survived his first month of surgery! 

Obviously most of his jobs are on the smaller end but still he is right there in the thick of things helping out which is really cool! Here are just a few of the experiences I remember hearing Student Doctor Nick (as he is often called in the hospital these days) talk about over the past couple of weeks! Ha... Student Doctor Nick... that  sounds like a step up from Doctor-In-Training doesn't it?! Baby steps.

• Hernia repair- a 5 hour surgery he was able to be scrub in on in which he got to hold back fat flaps and cut the sutures.
• Perforated stomach ulcer- 4 hour surgery where there was basically a hole in a woman's stomach that needed to be repaired and re-attached to a new part of the colon (or maybe I am wrong... I try and keep up but don't always succeed.) 
• LOTS of gun shot wounds (Oh Detroit)
• A sad case of an attempted suicide that resulted in someone's face being split in half and needing reconstruction. He says it is crazy the things they can do to repair damage.
• Breast clinic where he learned all the ins and outs of breast cancer and got to spend 2 days  hands on with patients of all stages of breast cancer.
• He has been able to close up a few surgeries! AKA he is quickly becoming the suture king!! 
• A number of really interesting orthopedic cases- broken wrists, broken knee caps... all sorts of hammering, sawing, and crazy stuff on people's bones. Seriously, it sounds brutal and from the sound of it looks like a tool shed in that OR!

 He also consulted on an older man who was riding his bike and was hit by a car and broke his collar bone and fractured his vertebra. We just so happen to have an older man who rides his bike by our house every day so now I am very worried it could be the same guy!!! Hopefully not, I feel like we are friends since I literally see him go by everyday!! But the weather is now really, really cold so I am thinking he may just not be down with biking in the freezing cold and that is why he has not been by lately rather than jumping to the conclusion that MY biker guy is the same as the injured one!

The good thing about surgery is that when he isn't consulting on patients/in clinic/in surgery he gets to study until his pager goes off or he is needed for something. Depending on the surgery rotation he gets more of this "study time" than others, but when he does get it, it's awesome because then he doesn't have to do much extra studying when he gets home!!!

One more week before a couple weeks off for Christmas! Then we hit the ground running after break with 2 out of his first 3 weeks or so being on the night shift! Wooo.... not. However, crazy things happen in the D at night, so I'm sure it will be anything but boring for him! :)