Last week Monday I followed a pediatric surgeon around for a day and observed my first "real" surgeries. I say real because I have seen ophthalmology surgeries before, but they tend to be very different.
There were three cases scheduled that day, and the first one was kind of a big deal. The pediatric surgeon I followed was working with the chief of Baylor's adult bariatric surgery program to perform a roux-en-Y gastric bypass on a 17 year old boy who was almost 500 pounds. There was a news crew from channel 11 to interview the surgeons and film the procedure. The whole thing was done laproscopically, and it was quite neat to watch.
The second procedure was to perform an excisional biopsy on an enlarged inguinal lymph node in a young infant. They weren't sure initially if it was a tumor or an infection, but upon cutting into the mass it oozed lots of pus, so they had their answer pretty fast.
The last procedure was to remove a thyroid adenoma from a young teenager. He was playing football and was injured a few months ago, and when he had an MRI done to look for head injuries, they noticed he had this small benign cancer growing on his thyroid. The procedure is relatively straightforward, except there is a nerve near the thyroid that controls vocalization and respiration, so almost the entire surgery is spent finding the nerve and making sure it does not get cut.
Overall I thought that surgery looked like a lot of fun. General surgeons (and pediatric surgeons) do a wide variety of procedures, and most have a balance of clinical days and surgery days. The downside is the ridiculously intense five year residency. Fellowships after general residency get even more competitive and even more time consuming. I'll have to see what it is really like when I rotate in about a year, and check out if it is worth the sacrifice.
5 comments:
Well if you're going to be a surgeon, you're going to have to get back to playing video games to improve your skills.
Laproscopy has so changed abdomenal surgery - no more 6 to 10 inch scars like many of my generation have, All Dad/Grandpa has after his major chest surgery are scars from four holes.
It will be most interesting, Keith, to see what you decide to pursue - Family Practice is not paid well but I personally think of it as the greater challenge. It also seems to be the greatest need. Some Fam Pract physicians are even going house calls. Wouldn't that be exciting !
This post makes it clear that you are learning some new vocabulary Keith! I didn't understand many of the sentences because of my limited grasp of medical terminology.
sounds cool! were there any issues with the induction process/iv placement? Especially with the 500 lb kid? All of the research I'm doing basically focuses on problems with anesthesia in obese children. Obesity causes alot of complications...
- Laurel
whoops. didn't mean to leave that on dad's name - I don't have a google account of mine own...
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