#9: Surgical Oncology

Here it is on Monday morning and I just woke up 2 hours ago because I have the day off! Quite a change from the 4 to 5 AM wake-up times I've had for the past few days. I started a new service, Surgical Oncology, on Tuesday morning and it's been a lot more work than my previous service (Gastrointestinal, or GI, Surgery.) GI Surgery had two attendings but Surgical Oncology has three attendings so there are more patients that receive operations on my new service which translates into more patients that I have to take care of. Also, last month before I started on Surgical Oncology there were two interns who were doing the same amount of work that I am now doing by myself. I guess it's fair because last month was the first month in the training cycle and the service needed two interns since all of the interns were learning the system...

Now I also have the additional responsibility of running across the street from the hospital on Tuesdays and Fridays in order to assist in minor procedures like breast lumpectomies and melanoma/skin cancer excisions. My job is to show up in the procedure room and then race to get into a sterile gown and to prep and drape before my attending surgeon shows up (prep: sterilize the operative area with iodine and drape: put sterile drapes over the patient's body and secure them so only the steriled operative area is showing.) My attending surgeon is a pretty cool guy although I've heard he is pretty tough on interns. So far I've avoided any lectures or outbursts by getting the prep and drape done as fast as possible. The patients are awake for all of these procedures but they can't see what is going on so my attending shows me how to do parts of the procedure via hand motions. He'll do one part of the incision and then hand me the scapel and let me do the other half of the incision. It's pretty funny because once I did something wrong and got my hand slapped! Each procedure he lets me do more and more and now I'm at the point where I tie all of the knots except for the main midline knot. Also, he now trusts me to close the incision by myself so he'll leave the room before the procedure is over and lets me finish it up. We'll see what new responsibilities I have this coming week.

Last call night: Tuesday, August 1st.
Patients covered last call night:Around 45, including 18 on my own service on the first day that I met these patients.
Amount of sleep last call night: Around 90 minutes.
Currently reading: Greenfield's chapters on Breast Cancer and Skin Cancer.
Currently watching: I saw about 10 minutes of the Hall of Fame Game last night before falling fast asleep.
Next call night: Saturday, August 5th. I'll write another blog later today about this call night in which I got into a fight with two nurses.