First 3 weeks of General Surgery

I am already in my 4th week of General Surgery run. Time really flies. I am sorry I haven’t updated in ages. Just can’t find the time to update or more like the free time is used for better activities like sleeping and eating. Haha. I haven't been extremely busy or anything but just tired from getting up early. Getting used to it though.

I finished my first 3 weeks in the vascular team and am now in the breast, thyroid, skin and upper GI team. Vascular ran by really quick. My team had 2 consultants, 2 registrars, 2 house officers and 2 students. Everyone was really nice and very willing to teach even the other team’s house officers. I learnt heaps about vascular problems as I never really took an effort to know much about this system before this. I have improved on the blood vessels anatomy (something I used to skip reading in IMU), the pathology and treatments. I found it all a bit boring and monotonous in the beginning but as time went on, it really amazed me how well connected and contained our blood circulation was and yet an occlusion or dilation in one part would not cause an affect elsewhere.
My daily routine was be at the ward at 7.30am ( I get up at 6.30am now- not ungodly hours anymore :)), have ward rounds with the team until about 8.15 am then either go to theatre or clinic. Afternoons were pretty much free unless surgery was going on. So I would go hunt down patients for POGS (case histories that we have to write up), find patients to draw blood or put IV cannulas in or just something to do. The house officers in ward 41 were really helpful. They kept encouraging us to try taking bloods and putting cannulas in despite failing many times. I have successfully taken blood from a patient but have yet put a cannula in. I have tried many many times but unfortunately it didn’t go in. Poor patients for having be pricked many times. Nick(the other student on the team) and I practised putting cannulas on each other first before trying on patients. I managed to put one in on him as he had nice big veins. Unfortunately my veins were terrible and even after having the tourniquet on for 15 minutes, no veins popped out. I am a hard patient. Hahah.

Clinics were very useful as I would follow the one of the registrars or consultants inside the consultation room and see a patient. Learnt how to do peripheral vascular examinations with all the pulses, listened to many carotid bruits and felt many abdominal aneurysms. I also became aware that sometimes nothing can be done to treat the condition either due to other risk factors or the mortality risks. This was quite sad as the patients basically just had to carry on with life knowing soon they won’t be around anymore. That’s life..learning to accept that one day we will have to leave this world.

Theatre was a whole new truly enjoyable experience. I watched many vascular surgeries and even scrubbed in a few. When we scrub in we actually assist the surgeon on the operation which basically is just holding the equipments and cutting the sutures. It really makes a difference though when you scrub in as I learnt much more than from just standing at the side and watching. I sadly don’t have a picture of myself with the pink hair cover and the blue shoe cover and the dark blue scrubs. Should try and take one. Haha. One thing if I become a surgeon, I will spend millions to get a comfy shoe. Standing for all those hours is no small matter. I had terrible heel pain for the first few days and then I started carrying my sport shoes with me and it wasn’t so bad. I received a few comments about my pink shoe though. Hahaha.

I really enjoyed my vascular team and met some great doctors there. I was very happy with my consultant’s review and assessment. He is just too nice. :)

My current team consist of 4 consultants; each specialized in a different area, 5 registrars, 3 house officers and 3 trainee interns. It’s definitely a much bigger team but I am sure I will learn lots from all of them.

Being in hospital, makes me feel more passionate about the career I have chosen. Being able help someone feel better is truly satisfying when it is achieved. Despite all the hard work that is to come, I am looking forward to all the years ahead.