Hello everyone! We are officially on Christmas break and so I thought I'd finally share a typical day in the life of my surgery rotation. This is from a few weeks ago but I just never got a chance to share the post since life was pretty hectic on this rotation.
6:15 am - roll out of bed, clean up, and go make some coffee. I eat my kind breakfast protein bar and sip on my coffee as I get ready. Today is a Wednesday, and my preceptor goes to another town to operate/see patients so we will be driving a bit today. I try to eat as much as possible because I know this day is probably going to be very busy.
7:00 am - I am out the door. My drive to Lebanon from Nashville takes about 30 minutes. I eat a banana on my way (I know, I'm a weirdo who eats her breakfast in parts) and listen to some Christmas music to keep me awake.
7:35 am - Get to Lebanon and see that I have a text from my preceptor. We had a patient admitted to the ICU last night from the ER for abdominal pain so we go to round on her. We look at her chart and read her history, check the CT scan, abdominal x-rays, labs, etc. and go talk to her. We also talk to her nurse and the admitting physician. Then my preceptor orders repeat labs that need to be performed in a few hours and we sign off for the morning. We will decide later on in the day if she needs to be operated on or not.
8:15 am - Once we get done with rounds, we drive to Carthage where we have three operations this morning. Since we had unexpected rounding this morning and our first surgery was scheduled at 8:30 am, we are running behind.
8:50 am - get to Carthage, go see our first patient in pre-op and alert the OR staff that the patient is ready. While my attending goes to talk to our second patient, I help the OR staff prep the patient and get things ready for our first case.
9:20 am - 50 minutes behind schedule, but we scrub and start our first operation of the day, which is excision of a skin lesion on a forearm. I was the first assist on this case and my preceptor lets me put in a suture on the specimen so that the lab can identify the margins.
10: 30 am - Once the we are done operating on our first patient, I go and write scripts and the operative (op) note. It's been good practice to write op notes and I'm so glad my preceptor allowed me to have this learning experience. Obviously my preceptor reviews every charting or prescription or anything I write before signing it.
10: 40 am - I see that the staff has already brought back out next patient, so I go in the OR and help prep again. This patient needs a port placement for chemotherapy and it's usually a simple procedure. Once again, my preceptor allows me to first assist since it's a simpler and pretty short procedure.
11: 15 am - once again, I go write scripts and the operative note and show both of them to my attending so she can read and sign it. When need be, she helps me improve my op notes, which is what we did for this case. Once we are done, I go down some water to make sure I'm well hydrated and go back to see if the next patient is ready.
11:35 am - our last operation of the day is a laparoscopic left inguinal hernia repair. It takes us much longer than anticipated to finish this operation due to adhesions that we found and had to take care of before repairing the hernia. I am so hungry by this point and try very hard to focus on the screen and not my stomach. I basically only observed this surgery and closed two small incision sites where the trocars are inserted because it was a complicated surgery. Otherwise, I usually get to guide the laparoscopic camera during these surgeries. We also call our clinic and them know we are running late since we have patients waiting for us.
1:25 pm - I go write the op note and the scripts and quickly munch down a small bag chips and have some water before walking to the clinic (which is right down the hill from the hospital). We only have three patients to see today at this clinic. My preceptor goes and sees our first patient as I bring back the next two patients and work them up.
3:00 pm - While I wait for my preceptor to finish visiting our last patient in the clinic, I try to eat my salad really quickly but don't even make it halfway before it's time to drive back to Lebanon. We still have more patients to round on in the hospital from the day before since we didn't get a chance to round on them this morning
3:40 pm - back to Lebanon. We round on three patients, one of them being the patient from this morning. We have one post-op (appendectomy) patient to see and another patient admitted to the floor for C. diff and diverticulitis. Once we go see them, my preceptor teaches me how she likes her progress notes to be written and helps me write one for our post-op lap appy patient. After that, I watch her document in the EMR
5:15 pm - we are finally done with our day and head out the door. I realize that I have still not had an actual meal today and stop by on my way home at a chick-fil-a.
5:45 pm - Get home and go straight to the shower. I am too tired to study today but I make an attempt anyway (without getting too far).
7:00 pm - watch some TV and do some TrueLearn questions to fulfill my 110 questions per rotation requirement set by our school.
9:00 pm - I truly can't keep my eyes open anymore so I go brush my teeth and crawl into bed. Thankfully I have the day off tomorrow so I will get the chance to make up for not being able to study today.
Day in Review
Hours worked: 9
Total patients seen: 10
Patients seen on my own: 2
Hours studied: 1
Other surgeries or procedures I've been able to assist on and or be a part of: multiple laparoscopic cholecystectomies (taking out gallbladders), colon resections, umbilical hernias, lumpectomy (excision of breast lumps due to cancer), stereotactic breast biopsies, excisional biopsies, fine needle aspirations of thyroid nodules, incision and draining of abscesses, removing drains, removing ports, removal of gastric bands, and placement of PEG tube. My most favorite part of this rotation was getting the opportunity to intubate two patients in the OR. You never, ever forget that moment and those patients.
Surgery was my most dreaded rotation before I started it. However, it turned out to be my most enjoyable and favorite rotation so far. If you've been following my Instagram posts and stories, you may already know this. I was sad to see this rotation end because I really enjoyed the hands on experience, the patients we saw in our clinic and all the procedures we did, and mostly my preceptor and the interaction we had all day long. She made surgery fun and took the time to teach me while we were in the OR and the clinic, allowing me to have a well rounded experience. I am taking away a lifetime of memories and experiences and am definitely keeping surgery as an option for the future.
Tomorrow I'm getting all four of my wisdom teeth removed (eeek) and then next weekend I'm heading to Raleigh, NC to spend the rest of my break with my sister and brother-in-law. After that, I have my second family med rotation. If you guys have any questions about my rotation or anything else, feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email. Have a lovely Sunday and thanks for reading! :)
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