Surgery Junkie

6/19/14
Today was by far one of the best I've had at the hospital so far.  In peds, we did the normal rounds and then saw walk-in patients because it was a clinic day.  One boy what was 1 year and 7 months had hydrocephalus, meaning there was a build up of cerebrospinal fluid in his head, causing it to swell to a circumference of 51cm.  Previously, I had only verse seen pictures of this condition, so it was amazing to see it in real life.

Right after pediatrics, we went straight to OB and watched a C-section.  Despite the efforts of the nurses after the delivery, the baby didn't make it.  Seeing 2 deaths in 2 days is pretty tough, but it helped that there were other healthy babies in the ward.  After the C-section we went to surgery and watched Dr. Ombati drain pus from the arm of a women who we had seen previously (she had had pus drained from leg and breast a couple days before).  We found out that the reason she was developing so many abscesses was because she had HIV.

The next surgery was an exploratory abdominal surgery really similar to the one I watched on Saturday.  In this case however, the man had gangrene in his rectum and Dr. Rahib had to reroute his intestine through a hole in the side of his stomach.  They left the dead tissue inside for observation, but the man would have to have his intestine protruding out his side for the rest of his life (he was 70).

Another surgery was on another elderly man who had a mass of fat in his upper right thigh.  The surgery was pretty quick and only took about 15 minutes, resulting in a clean removal of fat the size of a baseball.  It was a pretty cool surgery.

Finally, I watched the end of the removal of an external fixate in a man's leg and then Dr. Ombati put on a back slab.  Due to poor handwriting and pronunciation, I have realized that it is not in fact "back stab" like we all thought, but rather "back slab"... important correction.

After the surgeries were over everyone left and I stayed in OB to see if there was anything going on.  I weighed two babies, cut umbilical cords, and delivered a baby... pretty successful afternoon.  I also observed a C-section of a disabled woman.  She was very small (I don't really know the appropriate term, but she was a midget for lack of a better word), her head sunk into her shoulders, and the bones in her legs were curved and bent at the knee so she couldn't walk.  Because of her legs, the doctor had to make a vertical incision, running around her belly button, instead of a horizontal one.  The delivery itself was pretty easy, but the baby was very small and didn't seem to have any muscle control at all (it's arms flopped everywhere).  The baby also did not appear to be breathing, but the nurse took him away and I have no idea what happened after that.  Based on what I saw, I don't think it ended well.

I ended up leaving the hospital at 5:45, exactly 10 hours after I arrived, so it was a really long day.  It was definitely worth staying the extra time, though because the surgeries and C-sections were amazing.  Definitely becoming a surgery junkie already.

Of course it was Thursday, meaning BBQ then Shooters, which was super fun... such a fantastic day.