off, for lack of a better word, shitty. I have a cold, fever, and was wallowing in bed this morning debating wheth
er or not I should go to the clinic. I muscled up some courage and dragged myself to meet up with the married ones. Being that I had to blow my nose every 3 seconds I opted out of scrubbing-in for the first few surgeries. Brent got lucky this morning with an osteochondritis (sp?) which involved chiseling away giant bone formations off of some poor guy's knee. Loads of blood and lots of action, I was able to get some great shots of Brent helping out and became extremely jealous when the surgeon asked him to suture. It was a continuous suture and Brent missed that part of our suture clinic back in Anchorage so he had a bit of a hard time but I must give him credit for attempting his first sutures on a live person!Eventually I scrubbed in for a hydrocele and
Mona, the cute English medical student, walked me through the operation, the clinical diagnosis, and was just amazing. She was attempting the surgery for the first time alone (with me). I could tell she was nervous because she kept apologizing and I had to explain that I could not tell the difference between the world's best or worst surgeon. I did get to see a gyser of fluid erupt from the boy's scrotum, first cool thing of the day. Again, I am living my own dream working here, though 
2 hours of surgery with a runny nose that you can't scratch or even touch is about as challenging as it gets for me. Lunch was good and the ladies are enjoying my Kamer. OH! Dr. Jim finally showed up.... He is...a character. He blows through the OR like a barefooted hurricane barking at any and everyone in his path. He was scheduled for a surgery in the afternoon and when it came time ALL of the surgeons were no where to be found. I think they were hiding and playing rock, paper, scissors to see who had to work with Dr. Jim. I have to give just some highlights of him in the OR:
Mona, the cute English medical student, walked me through the operation, the clinical diagnosis, and was just amazing. She was attempting the surgery for the first time alone (with me). I could tell she was nervous because she kept apologizing and I had to explain that I could not tell the difference between the world's best or worst surgeon. I did get to see a gyser of fluid erupt from the boy's scrotum, first cool thing of the day. Again, I am living my own dream working here, though 
2 hours of surgery with a runny nose that you can't scratch or even touch is about as challenging as it gets for me. Lunch was good and the ladies are enjoying my Kamer. OH! Dr. Jim finally showed up.... He is...a character. He blows through the OR like a barefooted hurricane barking at any and everyone in his path. He was scheduled for a surgery in the afternoon and when it came time ALL of the surgeons were no where to be found. I think they were hiding and playing rock, paper, scissors to see who had to work with Dr. Jim. I have to give just some highlights of him in the OR:1. Blowing in to the OR = "ALRIGHT LETS GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD. WHERE IS THE SURGEON?! WHERE ARE ANY OF THE G
OD DAMN SURGEONS!?!? WHAT?! THEY'RE ALL OUTSIDE OF THE OR!?! TELL THEM TO GET THEIR ASSES IN HERE!!"2. Spilled blood on the floor = "YOU! CLEAN THIS UP..NO NO NOW! NO! NOT WITH THAT! A MOP! M-O-P MOP! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!"
3. Start of a surgery talking to the surgeon who has not scrubbed in yet = "JUST CUT! OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE (slapping the surgeon's hands) YOU DON'T NEED TO WASH ITS JUST A QUICK CUT!"
I have never met anyone quite like him before.
Anyways, it was one of the last surgeries and I opted to scrub-in. Our patient was a severely scarred (old burns) 10 year-old boy who was there for a burn contracture (loosening of scarred skin) which required a skin graft. Mona, myself, and the surgeon started and fortunately I was told that I could sit for the operation because the surgeon is only about 4'5" (in the morning) and leaning over to match his and Mona's level would have killed my back. Mona had a cold as well and scrubbed out 10 minutes into the surgery. This left just the surgeon and myself. He is my favorite so far because he has descent English, he explains EVERYTHING and has a great sense of humor. He let me cut, cauterize, retract, separate facia, and..... suture!!! Yep! (giant grin on my face as I type) I helped suture a 10 year-old's armpit back together 6 stitches! I will admit that I am slow (he stitched 45 in the same amount of time), but I did it! The second time I ever stitched was on a human! I helped "skin" the patient's thigh (I will never look at slicing cheese the same again) and stitch the skin onto his neck. It was a rush, Lori got some great pictures and I hope to put them up tomorrow. Wish me luck, everyday here gets better and better!
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