Getting My Hands Dirty Again
One of the few downsides of doing relief work is that I don't get to do a lot of surgery. Most clinics, when they're bringing someone in for just a day or two, don't necessarily want that person to be cutting patients open - and, to be honest, when I don't know a clinic too well, I'm reluctant to do surgery in their facilities. Aside from not knowing the skills and reliability of the techs, I don't mean to sound like a snob, but I can't count on them having equipment and resources that are up to my standards for patient care.
But I realized last week that it had been over a year since I had performed surgery. And that was kind of worrisome - while last year was spent more focusing on myself than anything else, I don't want to lose my medical skills in the process. And surgery is one of those things that, the longer I don't do it, the more I'm a bit hesitant to start again. It's scary, and it's dangerous, and it's easy to get caught up in fretting about the risks of anesthesia, the scariness of cutting stuff in an unknown hospital, and the concern that, being out of practice, I'll have lost the necessary skills and dexterity and won't be able to give the patient the best possible care.
So I made up my mind to bite the bullet, find a clinic that I'm comfortable with, and ask whether they'd be comfortable with me doing surgery at their facility. I've got a few weeks coming up where I'll be at one clinic for the full week; that should give me the time to familiarize myself with their staff and their equipment, and get comfortable with the concept, right?
Except I was short-circuited in that attempt by walking into work Monday morning and having the other doctor ask whether I'd mind spending the day doing surgery, since she was hoping to get out of the surgery rotation at the hospital. A hospital I've worked at pretty frequently for the past few years, and that I'm quite comfortable with the extraordinarily skilled techs and high standards of care.
I wasn't quite expecting to be thrown into it that quickly, but... it was what I'd been planning to do, wasn't it? So I swallowed my worries and said yes.
Here's the other thing about surgery. For all that I worry about it the longer I'm away from it, once I actually get dressed up and start the procedure.... I love it. I forget that when I'm not doing it, but there's something amazing and fascinating and simultaneously exciting and comfortable about it - the feel of the instruments in my hand, the sound of the monitoring machines, the patient under my care, the knowledge of what has to be done, the sheer coolness of being able to cut a living thing open, poke and prod at its innards, sew it up with a needle and thread, and have it walk away... and most of all, the fact that I'm working with my hands to make something better. Deep in my heart of hearts, I love working with my hands more than almost anything - I'm happiest when I'm touching and doing and making, and this is the one aspect of veterinary medicine that lets me do that more than anything else.
There's still a little part of me that's slightly concerned about having done it, and about having to do it again; I don't think I'll ever lose that. But there's a much bigger part that can't wait for the chance to do it again in a couple of weeks.....
But I realized last week that it had been over a year since I had performed surgery. And that was kind of worrisome - while last year was spent more focusing on myself than anything else, I don't want to lose my medical skills in the process. And surgery is one of those things that, the longer I don't do it, the more I'm a bit hesitant to start again. It's scary, and it's dangerous, and it's easy to get caught up in fretting about the risks of anesthesia, the scariness of cutting stuff in an unknown hospital, and the concern that, being out of practice, I'll have lost the necessary skills and dexterity and won't be able to give the patient the best possible care.
So I made up my mind to bite the bullet, find a clinic that I'm comfortable with, and ask whether they'd be comfortable with me doing surgery at their facility. I've got a few weeks coming up where I'll be at one clinic for the full week; that should give me the time to familiarize myself with their staff and their equipment, and get comfortable with the concept, right?
Except I was short-circuited in that attempt by walking into work Monday morning and having the other doctor ask whether I'd mind spending the day doing surgery, since she was hoping to get out of the surgery rotation at the hospital. A hospital I've worked at pretty frequently for the past few years, and that I'm quite comfortable with the extraordinarily skilled techs and high standards of care.
I wasn't quite expecting to be thrown into it that quickly, but... it was what I'd been planning to do, wasn't it? So I swallowed my worries and said yes.
Here's the other thing about surgery. For all that I worry about it the longer I'm away from it, once I actually get dressed up and start the procedure.... I love it. I forget that when I'm not doing it, but there's something amazing and fascinating and simultaneously exciting and comfortable about it - the feel of the instruments in my hand, the sound of the monitoring machines, the patient under my care, the knowledge of what has to be done, the sheer coolness of being able to cut a living thing open, poke and prod at its innards, sew it up with a needle and thread, and have it walk away... and most of all, the fact that I'm working with my hands to make something better. Deep in my heart of hearts, I love working with my hands more than almost anything - I'm happiest when I'm touching and doing and making, and this is the one aspect of veterinary medicine that lets me do that more than anything else.
There's still a little part of me that's slightly concerned about having done it, and about having to do it again; I don't think I'll ever lose that. But there's a much bigger part that can't wait for the chance to do it again in a couple of weeks.....