surgery, round 2

The last week and a half of surgery has been fairly laid back. No major surgeries, and I've been getting home at a decent time each day. We lost the medical students this week, which I was kind of sad about because they were really great. But we get new ones on Monday, so we'll see how that goes. We also welcomed the arrival of the chief resident back to presby/montefiore. As I said last time, the residents are on a rotating schedule. This guy is really nice and great to be around, as is the rest of the team.

The PA on the team is my age and just started working in the last couple months. She is great at what she does up on the floor, seeing patients, writing notes and orders, etc. She also happens to be from Westerville, OH! So we were excited about that. At the start of the week we gained our new PA student. She is very nice and very eager to learn. I've seen several of my classmates around the hospital and have exchanged notes with them via our lab coats sitting outside the OR. It's always nice to see them and hear about the experiences they are having!

As far as surgeries go…Several laparoscopic cholecystectomies (removal of the gallbladder), radio-frequency ablation of a liver tumor (which was really cool), small bowel resections, ileostomy reversals, a rectopexy (for rectal prolapse). There was one patient with a huge Meckel's diverticulum, which was neat! Other than being in the OR, I'm trying to see patients in the clinic, writing notes, and rounding. It's hard to stay busy at times because there are 8 people on the GI surgery service (well 6 now since the med students are gone). But I'm doing my best.

I am really liking surgery and being in the OR and the long days and the whole experience really, but I wish I was able to do more. I think they are going to have the PA students work with some other GI services that have smaller teams, so hopefully that will go in our favor. This weekend I need to get some homework done and catch up on sleep! 4 hours of sleep and waking up at 3:30AM 5 days a week is not good for the body! Last night I completely crashed from being so tired. But what would surgery be without some sleep deprivation?! Here's to hoping next week is better than this last one!