As I anticipated, the surgery clerkship has been a struggle. The hours were the first major adjustment. Rounds start at 6:00 AM, compared to the day starting at 8:00 in family med, or 9:00 in years one and two. Needless to say, I’ve started getting up much earlier – around 4:30 AM. The days are long and tiring. Merely standing in the OR is exhausting, and actually scrubbing in is even harder. Standing still for three to seven hours at a time isn’t natural. Walking around for many hours is fine, but when I stand still for that length of time, my feet start to scream. First, they ache, and I shift from foot to foot. After a couple of hours, they really start to hurt. Finally, they feel numb, but by then there are other problems, like being ravenous and needing a bathroom break! Scrubbing in also means being mindful of your body and not moving your hands out of the sterile field which means no scratching an itch and no careless gesturing (outside of the nipples to navel range). Suctioning and retracting are my main jobs and they are not as simple as you might think. Retracting is difficult because you worry about retracting too hard or not enough. It never seems like you’re able to suit the surgeon’s taste and surgeons often have terse words for those who displease them…
After a long day of rounds, and time in the OR and clinic, there are often late afternoon lectures. When I eventually get home, I feel generally gross. Sticky hands from all the hand sanitizer, sweaty from double gloves and sterile gowns, and sore from standing. My first destination upon getting home is the shower. Then, oftentimes, my wonderful, patient boyfriend has already made dinner. After dinner, there are chores to be done, but they get neglected these days. There are precious few hours before bedtime and it’s hard to decide what to do with them. I should be reading about surgery and doing quizzes and case studies. Or, I could do chores and tackle the mountain of laundry and dishes. Or, the last option, which usually wins, I could spend some time relaxing with my boyfriend.
This is important, because when you leave for work at 5:30 AM, get back at 6:30 PM, and should be going to bed before 10:00 PM, there aren’t many opportunities to spend time together. Even weekends are difficult, since students have a responsibility to attend rounds on one weekend day. These days, I am so tired and cranky that I sometimes take out my frustrations on those around me, most often my boyfriend. What’s hard is that, in the past, if we had a little spat, there was time to smooth it over. Now there are so few hours in the day that I feel hard pressed to really make things right again. Therefore, time in the evenings is usually better spent working on relationship maintenance, rather than housekeeping and chores. So my apartment is in a state of disrepair but hopefully my relationship isn’t. I’m only halfway through the surgery clerkship but it has felt like an eternity. Four weeks to go…
