Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Surgery ... Not What I Was Expecting

Well our Surgery module is kicking my butt. Not necessarily because the material is hard, but because we have shunned all of our other classes away in order to fit surgery in one week. Here is our schedule for this week:

8AM - Meet in lecture room for Surgery topic lectures

12:30PM - Break for lunch (and you better woof it down fast)

1:00PM - Back to lecture room for more Surgery topic lectures
4:00PM - Either go home and start studying to try and catch up with the enormous amount of material given to you that day OR:


4-6PM - If it is your groups day you go to the suture and "how to gown up for surgery" lab room and practice, practice, practice.

So far it has been that schedule for the past 3 days. Needless to say (maybe?), this week has found me fighting every nerve and muscle in my body to stay awake during the 4 hour lecture marathons.

I thought that when we did surgery we would be talking a lot about procedures, how to do them, what to look out for, etc. Instead we have been more talking about when is it appropriate to do surgery, pre-op/post-op considerations, and prophylactic therapies. Much of what we have been talking about has been a lot of review from the GI module. We really havent talked much about cardiac surgeries or anything like that. I think it's because the PA teaching us right now is teaching us mainly from what he does at their hospital. That's fine I guess. I just wish we were getting a little more diverse exposure. But maybe thats what next year is for.

Well back to work!!

M-R

7 comments:

ChristinePAS said...

Hey, if it makes ya feel any better, my program's surgery course is just as useless and even less hands-on. We just talked about all kinds of odds and ends things and nothing about actual surgical techniques and whatnot (well, one lecture on pre/post anesthesia care). It was repeating material from a handful of other courses. We all complained. :P

Morning Rounds said...

So someone is still reading this thing.. :-)

Sorry to hear that Christine. Maybe it's just the way it goes. I guess we have to remember that others have come and gone before us and did just fine. Even in their surgery rotation!

Just practice that two-handed and one-handed tie! Haha! Thanks for commenting!

Morning Rounds said...

P.S. - For the record I would comment on your blog but everytime I try to login over there it tells me my username is invalid, even though I just setup an account.

Gregory House, PA-C said...

I'm glad that you're back to writing. It's nice to have a years head up on what's to come.

Morning Rounds said...

Im doing my best to keep up on it. It gets tough every now and then. Ill try to keep it going during rotations too. Thanks for reading and commenting guys!

ChristinePAS said...

Pending and M-R, are you in the same program?

Morning Rounds said...

No we arent in the same program. My programs next year hasnt even started yet.