What a whirlwind of an eight weeks! After two weeks each of outpatient surgery, vascular surgery, orthopaedic surgery, and otolaryngology, I am happy to share that the days of 4:30 AM wake up calls, 9 PM bedtimes, and long days of standing in the OR are behind me!
The rotation was a bit of an emotional roller coaster: there were good days and bad days, rotations I liked and others I liked less, and days that I was excited about cases and other days I wasn’t. I met some really great, helpful, and nice people, but also met some negative, bitter, and unhappy people, but I guess that that’s just life.
Still, overall, I had a really great experience. While I don’t see surgery in my future, I feel so lucky to have experienced and to have learned about such a cool aspect of medicine. There’s something really amazing about seeing the inside of someone’s body and having the trust of a patient to do something as invasive as cut them open with the intention of making them feel better in the end. It’s a truly intimate relationship a patient and a doctor, perhaps most especially a surgeon, have, and I’m happy to have experienced a small part of that.
