Stepping Up to the (Surgical) Table

You know the student in high school biology class or in college anatomy class who was “the fainter”? Professors and students alike usually joked openly to this unfortunate student, “Hey, looks like you’re not going into medicine!”

Or what about the girl at the plasma and blood donation center trying to make a few extra bucks to get home for Christmas? This college student is stoic, determined, watching a movie along with everyone else, thinking maybe she is okay with this blood stuff after all. But then when that large needle withdraws plasma from her body, to be fed through a machine and then circulated back in—and that blood comes back in cooler than when it left—well, this girl faints clear off the table, taking the needle with her, and causing a hustle and bustle clinic-wide. The clinic director may have still given her $30 for her time but told her it’s probably best not to come back again…ever.

Or, lastly, perhaps we all have that friend who cuts her fingers pretty badly on a sharp drawer handle in the comforts of her own apartment. She calls to her roommate for help and by the time he arrives from the front room 3 feet away she is already on the floor with a spurting hand settled in her lap…

Well folks, that student, that girl, that friend, she is me. And, now? Well, now—as in tomorrow—I will descend into downtown Seattle at the crack of dawn for my first clerkship after a 4-month stint in family practice, and that rotation is in surgery.

This is the rotation that I have most anticipated, most dreaded, most futzed over, and now almost feel ready for? During my training at PA school I was proud of the venipuncture I was able to do, the stealthy suturing of incisions we made on grocery store pig's feet. During my clinic experiences I’ve been honored to perform incision and drainages on enormous abscesses and found, surprisingly, that I looked forward to these procedures. I was able to suture a laceration across a man's palm that went clear down to the bone. I have seen a few things, and I’ve only swayed and sweated a few times. 

But an abscess, a cyst, and a mole removal – even I know these cannot be compared to the extreme awe and utter amazement of opening up and cutting into a human body.

I have no idea why I get so faint, but think it may have something to do with my keen and overactive imagination. I have been told to look at the operation but not look at the operation; I have compression stockings, food, water, I’m going to ask for a chair, try not to get knee deep too soon, and most of all, try to enjoy this phenomenal experience before me.

I’m not privy, yet, to the surgeries I’ll scrub in on tomorrow. But, in a mere 15 hours I may be ecstatic, thrilled, horrified, or passed out cold somewhere in the OR suite (I already know not to fall forward, into the sterile field or, worse yet, onto the patient!) I’ve had well meaning friends offer me propranolol, give me fake skin to practice suturing on; I’ve spent hours watching the goriest YouTube videos I could find...

And then today, during my harried and anxious preparation, I realized with dismay that I made a significant oversight. I thought about something I hadn’t thought about before: I know, for a fact, there are at least a handful of people in Seattle tonight who are even more nervous than I am. 

It always comes back to the patients, doesn’t it?