Surgery class is intense. All of the group positions are intimidating in their own way.
The anesthetist is responsible for maintenance and monitoring the patient for the duration of the surgery. This involves taking measurements every 5 minutes for the entire surgery time. That's a lot of measurements. And they're in charge of making sure the animal stays under anesthesia. At the end, they're responsible for euthanzing the animal, which is a weighty and emotionally, if not technically, difficult process.
The surgeon and assistant surgeon are responsible for cutting into the flesh of an animal, maintaining the sterility of the area, and closing the incisions they make. This process is done with various teachers circling around and watching you like a hawk. There's the added problem that you want to ask questions but it often feels like asking questions and having your work evaluated by an already-trained eye (rather than your and your partner's starting-to-be-trained eye) will make you lose points. While we're supposed to be in this to learn to do it right, it's hard for us to stomach earning a 17/25! Most of us are used to much higher grades than that!
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #5
Small animal medicine
“… I have a Bernese Mountain Dog… which is kind of ridiculous.”
“The other thing about cancer cells that’s really dastardly…”
“… well it won’t be available for the dogs that were dead…”
“…cut them off and put it under the mattress with a frog’s leg and it will go away.”
“I’d rather have 6 years with a boxer than 17 years with a Chihuahua”
“3 days later his right atrium ruptured… which is suboptimal”
“he will get revenge… in a multitude of ways… most involving urine and feces.”
“when clients freak out about amputation, I ask ‘how many legs do you have?’ and they say ‘well… 2.’ And I say ‘well, you do pretty well.’”
“and then the reconstruction people will build you a new nose and you and you can go into public.”
“no pet should die without the benefit of steroids.”
“the recurrent laryngeal nerve is something one avoids in surgery if one can.”
“there are lots of important things with long names in there… and some short names too.”
“we’re talking therapeutic radiation, not nuclear destruction…”
“a cure for cancer is to live long enough to die of something else.”
“that’s a surgery for a person really experienced at removing sphincters”
“this is the rectum of a dog… but it’s too close for you to tell that.”
“You can’t just walk up to someone you don’t know and say ‘this is a bad plan!’”
“And no one knew then that cisplatin splats cats…”
“I said ‘I don’t know if this treatment is going to be possible because we need to be able to get the bloodwork faster…’ and he said ‘Oh, ok. I’ll get a plane.’ And he flew in for every chemo treatment the dog needed.”
“perhaps they are smart about some things… but this is not one of them.”
Radiology
“if you think you can slap a cast on any fracture, you’re living in the 1940’s”
“if you’re left with a jaw that doesn’t work… you’re screwed”
“you can use your brain and be right a lot of the time.”
“but my grandma didn’t go to vet school… you did.”
“… I would be correct, and I would be a bad doctor”
Large animal medicine
“no matter what is wrong with a horse, with a heart rate of 120… it’s bad.”
“normal horses are pretty boring”
Animal Models
“Betty White’s writing kind of induces violence.. but she doesn’t do it herself… she’s kind of old..”
Surgery
“He’s young and nice… I’m going to try to fix that… I can’t fix the young…”
“I’m probably not going to bite your head off… almost definitely”
“… I have a Bernese Mountain Dog… which is kind of ridiculous.”
“The other thing about cancer cells that’s really dastardly…”
“… well it won’t be available for the dogs that were dead…”
“…cut them off and put it under the mattress with a frog’s leg and it will go away.”
“I’d rather have 6 years with a boxer than 17 years with a Chihuahua”
“3 days later his right atrium ruptured… which is suboptimal”
“he will get revenge… in a multitude of ways… most involving urine and feces.”
“when clients freak out about amputation, I ask ‘how many legs do you have?’ and they say ‘well… 2.’ And I say ‘well, you do pretty well.’”
“and then the reconstruction people will build you a new nose and you and you can go into public.”
“no pet should die without the benefit of steroids.”
“the recurrent laryngeal nerve is something one avoids in surgery if one can.”
“there are lots of important things with long names in there… and some short names too.”
“we’re talking therapeutic radiation, not nuclear destruction…”
“a cure for cancer is to live long enough to die of something else.”
“that’s a surgery for a person really experienced at removing sphincters”
“this is the rectum of a dog… but it’s too close for you to tell that.”
“You can’t just walk up to someone you don’t know and say ‘this is a bad plan!’”
“And no one knew then that cisplatin splats cats…”
“I said ‘I don’t know if this treatment is going to be possible because we need to be able to get the bloodwork faster…’ and he said ‘Oh, ok. I’ll get a plane.’ And he flew in for every chemo treatment the dog needed.”
“perhaps they are smart about some things… but this is not one of them.”
Radiology
“if you think you can slap a cast on any fracture, you’re living in the 1940’s”
“if you’re left with a jaw that doesn’t work… you’re screwed”
“you can use your brain and be right a lot of the time.”
“but my grandma didn’t go to vet school… you did.”
“… I would be correct, and I would be a bad doctor”
Large animal medicine
“no matter what is wrong with a horse, with a heart rate of 120… it’s bad.”
“normal horses are pretty boring”
Animal Models
“Betty White’s writing kind of induces violence.. but she doesn’t do it herself… she’s kind of old..”
Surgery
“He’s young and nice… I’m going to try to fix that… I can’t fix the young…”
“I’m probably not going to bite your head off… almost definitely”
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Finals!
I'm not expecting to blog much this week... I'm going to be immersed in finals.
Monday: Pathology
I need an 80% on this one to get an A in the class. Not bad!
Tuesday: Radiology
I need a 91% on this one to get an A in the class. That kind of makes me nervous.
Wednesday: Infectious Disease and Public Health
I need an 83% on Infectious Disease and a 70% on Public Health for A's.
Thursday: Toxicology
I'm riding a 102% in the class right now. Based on the weight of the final, I need an 81% for an A.
Friday: Surgery/Anesthesiology
Since I have no real idea of what I made on the lab practical last week, I don't really know what I need for an A. Probably something beween an 82-87%. Hopefully she'll get the lab test back to us before the end of the week.
Monday: Pathology
I need an 80% on this one to get an A in the class. Not bad!
Tuesday: Radiology
I need a 91% on this one to get an A in the class. That kind of makes me nervous.
Wednesday: Infectious Disease and Public Health
I need an 83% on Infectious Disease and a 70% on Public Health for A's.
Thursday: Toxicology
I'm riding a 102% in the class right now. Based on the weight of the final, I need an 81% for an A.
Friday: Surgery/Anesthesiology
Since I have no real idea of what I made on the lab practical last week, I don't really know what I need for an A. Probably something beween an 82-87%. Hopefully she'll get the lab test back to us before the end of the week.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #4
Professor quotes
Path
“and if you’re a human… which everyone in here is…”
“It’s the retching of all retching…”
“If you have proteinuria… let me know!”
“If you’re a person, and we all are…”
Inf. Dz
“If I can’t latch on and I’m in the GI tract, I get washed out.”
“As you’re walking down the alley, the cows are lifting their tails and literally shooting it at you.”
“Veterinarians are the foremost poop-ologists.”
“That’s pretty close to screamin’ high.”
Tox
“Let me tell you what these stupid sheep do.”
“Any questions on LSD?”
“some people swear by fescue, other people swear at fescue.”
“I guess it’s ok to mutilate them as long as you don’t pick them.”
“I figure if they’re edible, I’ll eat them. I’m not picking anything off a cow patty.”
“people really want to get somebody else to pay for their mistakes.”
“We’ve been fighting France’s wars for year.”
“If you have to be bitten by one of these snakes… you want the copperhead.”
Surgery
“there are a lot of voices that go on in my head, but that’s not one of them”
“look at me! I can do hand ties. Breaks the ice with people..”
“It can be a pretty… whole body experience… to do those surgeries.”
Public Health
“What about the cool, new, sexy organisms.”
“I sit in the men’s restroom and hear the commode flush and I listen… then I hear the sink.”
“We need to learn from the blacks. They’re washing their hands.”
“There’s a stranger out there, and he’s got a pig under his coat. He’s probably a bioterrorist.”
“You’re supposed to know it.. but I’m not going to test on it because I can’t remember it either.”
“The kid gets overexcited about the kitten, the kitten gets underexcited about the kid, and voila! The gets scratched.)
“To a cat, the whole world is a litter box.”
“What are you, a laboratorian?”
“Are there any fish people… not fish people… aquarium types in here?”
“When you don’t have enclosed spaces for cats, you have escapees… which is sub-optimal.”
“45% of people have more than 1 pet… especially the cat folks.”
“long haired cats are like dust mops”
“it will turn a cat yellow… if you do it only once, it probably won’t be permanent.”
“I don’t know many dolphins that go hiking in the woods”
“lepto really, really likes Hawaii… can’t really blame it…”
“There’s nothing here that really screams ‘ I have leptospirosis!’”
“If you had to pick a brucella to be infected with… pick canis.”
Path
“and if you’re a human… which everyone in here is…”
“It’s the retching of all retching…”
“If you have proteinuria… let me know!”
“If you’re a person, and we all are…”
Inf. Dz
“If I can’t latch on and I’m in the GI tract, I get washed out.”
“As you’re walking down the alley, the cows are lifting their tails and literally shooting it at you.”
“Veterinarians are the foremost poop-ologists.”
“That’s pretty close to screamin’ high.”
Tox
“Let me tell you what these stupid sheep do.”
“Any questions on LSD?”
“some people swear by fescue, other people swear at fescue.”
“I guess it’s ok to mutilate them as long as you don’t pick them.”
“I figure if they’re edible, I’ll eat them. I’m not picking anything off a cow patty.”
“people really want to get somebody else to pay for their mistakes.”
“We’ve been fighting France’s wars for year.”
“If you have to be bitten by one of these snakes… you want the copperhead.”
Surgery
“there are a lot of voices that go on in my head, but that’s not one of them”
“look at me! I can do hand ties. Breaks the ice with people..”
“It can be a pretty… whole body experience… to do those surgeries.”
Public Health
“What about the cool, new, sexy organisms.”
“I sit in the men’s restroom and hear the commode flush and I listen… then I hear the sink.”
“We need to learn from the blacks. They’re washing their hands.”
“There’s a stranger out there, and he’s got a pig under his coat. He’s probably a bioterrorist.”
“You’re supposed to know it.. but I’m not going to test on it because I can’t remember it either.”
“The kid gets overexcited about the kitten, the kitten gets underexcited about the kid, and voila! The gets scratched.)
“To a cat, the whole world is a litter box.”
“What are you, a laboratorian?”
“Are there any fish people… not fish people… aquarium types in here?”
“When you don’t have enclosed spaces for cats, you have escapees… which is sub-optimal.”
“45% of people have more than 1 pet… especially the cat folks.”
“long haired cats are like dust mops”
“it will turn a cat yellow… if you do it only once, it probably won’t be permanent.”
“I don’t know many dolphins that go hiking in the woods”
“lepto really, really likes Hawaii… can’t really blame it…”
“There’s nothing here that really screams ‘ I have leptospirosis!’”
“If you had to pick a brucella to be infected with… pick canis.”
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sterile/Aseptic Technique
As it turns out, maintaining sterile technique for the length of an average teaching hospital surgery is going to be really hard to do! And in some ways incredibly frustrating.
First of all, my New Year's Resolution for 2010 was to stop chewing my fingernails (and cuticles.) So far, this has been a huge success. I had long, pretty fingernails. But, for proper surgical techinque your fingernails have to be 1-2 millimeters long and can't be painted. I cut them before lab last week to shorter than they've been since just after I quit chewing them... and they were still too long. I had to cut them even shorter before I could scrub in! And, I'll probably have to cut them again tomorrow because they've grown quite a bit since last week.
Then, there's scrubbing in which is, quite frankly, painful. It's not so bad on the fingertips and fingers, but when I get down to my palms and arms... ow! We have to use a really bristly brush and scrub at least 20 times per section (and you divide each finger into 4 sections, each hand into 4 sections, and each arm into 8 sections.) Also, we have to keep our arms held above our waist, with our elbows above our wrists. That doesn't sound hard until you try to hold your arms in that unatural position for 10 minutes or more.
The rest of the process is just a little hard to get the hang of. There's drying your hands while bent over a little bit and not touching the towel to yourself, the environment or an area you've already dried. Then there's putting on a gown without touching it to the table or the ground or putting your hands out of the sleeves. Then there's putting on gloves over the sleeves of your gown.
It's a hard set of new skills and habits to develop, but in the long run, it's worth it. If you learn top of the line now, when you slide a little in practice hopefully you'll still be good enough you aren't killing patients with infections.
First of all, my New Year's Resolution for 2010 was to stop chewing my fingernails (and cuticles.) So far, this has been a huge success. I had long, pretty fingernails. But, for proper surgical techinque your fingernails have to be 1-2 millimeters long and can't be painted. I cut them before lab last week to shorter than they've been since just after I quit chewing them... and they were still too long. I had to cut them even shorter before I could scrub in! And, I'll probably have to cut them again tomorrow because they've grown quite a bit since last week.
Then, there's scrubbing in which is, quite frankly, painful. It's not so bad on the fingertips and fingers, but when I get down to my palms and arms... ow! We have to use a really bristly brush and scrub at least 20 times per section (and you divide each finger into 4 sections, each hand into 4 sections, and each arm into 8 sections.) Also, we have to keep our arms held above our waist, with our elbows above our wrists. That doesn't sound hard until you try to hold your arms in that unatural position for 10 minutes or more.
The rest of the process is just a little hard to get the hang of. There's drying your hands while bent over a little bit and not touching the towel to yourself, the environment or an area you've already dried. Then there's putting on a gown without touching it to the table or the ground or putting your hands out of the sleeves. Then there's putting on gloves over the sleeves of your gown.
It's a hard set of new skills and habits to develop, but in the long run, it's worth it. If you learn top of the line now, when you slide a little in practice hopefully you'll still be good enough you aren't killing patients with infections.
Friday, April 2, 2010
April Fool’s Day
Overall, I had a very low-key April Fool’s Day. But the one prank I was privy to was hilarious!
In my 8AM surgery class, the professor came in and said that due to historically bad attendance in the second half of the course, the course coordinator had given her permission to administer the points for her section on the exam as a pop quiz. We all kind of nod and pull out some paper to write down our answers.
Then she puts up the first question and it’s really hard. We aren’t sure of the answer and are starting to sweat.
She puts up the second and it’s just mystifying. We have no idea! We didn’t talk about that!
She puts up the third question and it’s impossible. It’s something that might show up on the board exam to become a surgical specialist.
By then, I figure it out but most of my classmates are still panicking.
She puts up the last question and it’s just so impossible it’s hilarious.
Then she asked us what day it was, and you could just see the realization dawn on all of us.
We applauded.
In my 8AM surgery class, the professor came in and said that due to historically bad attendance in the second half of the course, the course coordinator had given her permission to administer the points for her section on the exam as a pop quiz. We all kind of nod and pull out some paper to write down our answers.
Then she puts up the first question and it’s really hard. We aren’t sure of the answer and are starting to sweat.
She puts up the second and it’s just mystifying. We have no idea! We didn’t talk about that!
She puts up the third question and it’s impossible. It’s something that might show up on the board exam to become a surgical specialist.
By then, I figure it out but most of my classmates are still panicking.
She puts up the last question and it’s just so impossible it’s hilarious.
Then she asked us what day it was, and you could just see the realization dawn on all of us.
We applauded.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #3
Professor quotes
Pathology
“I did brush my teeth this morning… so…”
“some student have described it as nuclear spooning.”
“Cats look different anyway… they’re like little horses in miniature. No, really, they have a lot of similarities!”
“transmissible venereal tumors can be present anywhere dogs like to touch their nose or do the nasty.”
“this is in species that love to contract their spleens”
“Platelets are sensitive little guys. You talk to them ugly and they get agitated and aggregate.”
Infectious Diseases
“Good guess! I mean, good answer.”
Toxicology
“I would think if you have an upset stomach, you wouldn’t want to take strychnine.”
“I don’t know how you guys are going to finish a major exam in 50 minutes…”
“those big planes have a glide path about like a rock.”
“obviously children don’t lick it off.”
“He should have been shot between the eyes… or slid down a 40 foot razor blade into a barrel of turpentine.”
“Most people don’t read the damn label, just like most people don’t read the damn instructions.”
Surgery
“The single, lone ranger, advantage…”
“Silk… oh! Bad, bad boy! Wicked! Evil!”
“The angels sing when we start talking about Surgilene”
“If anybody says “I’m going to sew this back together” I’m going to jump them and wrestle them to the ground.”
“placing 45 simple interrupted sutures is a real buzz kill.”
“this is part where I feel like I need to interpret through dance or something”
Public Health
“I’m going to try to make this not boring… this could be hard.”
Pathology
“I did brush my teeth this morning… so…”
“some student have described it as nuclear spooning.”
“Cats look different anyway… they’re like little horses in miniature. No, really, they have a lot of similarities!”
“transmissible venereal tumors can be present anywhere dogs like to touch their nose or do the nasty.”
“this is in species that love to contract their spleens”
“Platelets are sensitive little guys. You talk to them ugly and they get agitated and aggregate.”
Infectious Diseases
“Good guess! I mean, good answer.”
Toxicology
“I would think if you have an upset stomach, you wouldn’t want to take strychnine.”
“I don’t know how you guys are going to finish a major exam in 50 minutes…”
“those big planes have a glide path about like a rock.”
“obviously children don’t lick it off.”
“He should have been shot between the eyes… or slid down a 40 foot razor blade into a barrel of turpentine.”
“Most people don’t read the damn label, just like most people don’t read the damn instructions.”
Surgery
“The single, lone ranger, advantage…”
“Silk… oh! Bad, bad boy! Wicked! Evil!”
“The angels sing when we start talking about Surgilene”
“If anybody says “I’m going to sew this back together” I’m going to jump them and wrestle them to the ground.”
“placing 45 simple interrupted sutures is a real buzz kill.”
“this is part where I feel like I need to interpret through dance or something”
Public Health
“I’m going to try to make this not boring… this could be hard.”
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Surgery!
I’m really excited to be starting Surgery class. Granted, this semester we won’t actually get to cut anything. (I don’t think.)
But we do start learning the best way to hold our instruments. And the best way to organize and sterilize a surgery pack. And the best kinds of sutures to use. And how to tie sutures. Basically, we learn all the stuff you need to know to be a surgeon!
I have the added issue of being left handed, which is only problematic in that right now, all my tools are right handed. I’m going to be spending this semester deciding which ones I want to sink the money into ordering in left handed. Surgery tools are expensive enough; they’re even more expensive left handed.
I hope I can keep the multitude of similar, but slightly different, scissors straight!
But we do start learning the best way to hold our instruments. And the best way to organize and sterilize a surgery pack. And the best kinds of sutures to use. And how to tie sutures. Basically, we learn all the stuff you need to know to be a surgeon!
I have the added issue of being left handed, which is only problematic in that right now, all my tools are right handed. I’m going to be spending this semester deciding which ones I want to sink the money into ordering in left handed. Surgery tools are expensive enough; they’re even more expensive left handed.
I hope I can keep the multitude of similar, but slightly different, scissors straight!
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