OR

Erin Chew

The past two days I spent my time in the OR where I witnessed a mastectomy, two hernia repairs, the removal of the thyroid gland and the laparoscopic removal of the gallbladder. While I thought I'd get a bit queasy because of all the blood and gore involved, I had no problem standing over each patient's head to see a close up view of the intestines, thyroid gland, and external tissue.

During one of the hernia repairs, the patient was only under local anesthesia. I thought this was strange considering they were basically laying all of his guts on the operating table but apparently this allows for a shorter recovery period. Anyways, as strange as this sounds, the patient was just looking at me the entire time while I looked over the cloth that separated his head from the rest of his body. He kept asking "tabem? tabem?" which means, "is everything ok?" While I had no idea what was what inside of him (the intestines, tissue, and blood all started looking the same) I smiled and nodded to reassure him that the doctors knew what they were doing. Within a matter of 45 minutes, the doctors replaced the intestines which had fallen through the abdomen wall back in place.

A mastectomy is the removal of one or both breasts usually due to breast cancer. While it was very sad to watch the removal of what some might say defines a woman, I knew it was for the best and the patient would be cancer free after the surgery.

A laparoscopic surgery is a minimally invasive surgery in which the surgeon makes small holes into the patient to insert a camera for viewing and other small tools. This surgery literally looked like a video game. One surgeon held the camera in front of the gallbladder and the image was displayed onto two tv monitors in the operating room. The other surgeon made three small holes around the gallbladder for the insertion of various tools (scissors, clips, and graspers) Each hole was made by the insertion of a small plastic tube through which long rods with tool heads were inserted. The surgeon carefully separated the gallbladder from the liver and put it in a small plastic bag to bring out through the hole.

While my mom is terrified of me becoming a surgeon, these past two days have made me think about a a career as a surgeon. But who am I kidding, I can hardly decide on my major much less what shirt to wear in the morning so I think I can hold off on my medical specialty for a few more years!