Widened Horizons

The other day, I went to the OR with Chris bright and early in the morning. I changed into my scrubs like a pro this time, and was ready with my shoe coverings, hair net, and mask in record time. There are three main rooms in the surgery ward of the hospital, and Chris went to the general, big surgery room while I went to the more specialized room. The room is shared between orthopedics, ophthalmologists, and other specialty doctors who only come to the OR on certain days to do select surgeries. That day, Dr. Antonio, an ophthalmologist, was doing a few cataract surgeries. I have pretty bad eyesight (thanks Dad :P), so I have been to various eye doctors ever since elementary school. I was never interested in working with the eye, because I when I thought ‘eye doctor’ my brain conjured up an image of my optometrist, someone who does annual examinations and prescribes glasses and contacts- something I knew I didn’t want to do. I never even considered ophthalmology! The two fields, although both dealing with the eye, are very different. Ophthalmology is very hands-on, and I really liked how the surgery was so delicate and focused on a tiny, but extremely complex part of the body.

So, to start out my day in surgery, I saw two cataract surgeries with Dr. Antonio. It was at first a little disconcerting to see needles and scissors sticking out of a human’s eye like a scene out of a gory horror film. However, once I got used to the sight, I became more interested in the multiple layers of the eye, and the precision and skill with which Dr. Antonio handled the instruments. Unfortunately, I was standing in a corner of the room so I could not see the procedure close-up. I had to watch it on a television in the room that projected an image from a camera that magnified the eye. After the first cataract surgery, Dr. Antonio drew a picture for me to point out where exactly he had made the incisions. He also dyed the cataracts blue in the second surgery so that I could see them better, and understand how he removed them and inserted the new lens. I really appreciate the time he took to explain the procedure to me, because not all of the doctors we shadow do this. I think it had an effect on how interested I was in how ophthalmologists work.

The third surgery I saw was with a different surgeon. He did a surgery on a patient with strabismus, meaning her eyes didn’t line up properly, and he had to tighten and loosen muscles on the side of the eye to correct it. Her eyes were divergent, so he cut the muscle on the left side of the left eye, and loosened it. He then sutured the cut with dissolvable thread. I never thought about the actual thread that is used to stitch up the body, but it makes sense that it needs to be somewhat natural. Otherwise, the body would reject it, and that kind of discomfort in the eye has got to be brutal. The tread just disappears as the muscle corrects itself, and the doctors only know if the surgery worked a few days later when they take the eye patch off. For this surgery, there was no camera, so I was literally two feet away from the patient’s face!

I am so glad that I am seeing these different departments of the hospital at this point in my undergraduate career. The surgeries that I saw that day are something that I can see myself doing later in life. Even though I still enjoy and am very interested in pediatrics, my horizons are being widened, and I’m discovering that there is so much more I could do in the medical field.

Aisha