This is published at the FACS website. I found it to be somewhat humorous:

Consider your surgical clerkship. Did you:

• Find that long hours on surgery passed more quickly than short hours on some other clerkships?
• Appreciate the operating room teamwork during a difficult operation, when the nursing, anesthesia, and surgical staff all pulled together?
• Enjoy watching your patients improve daily after major injuries or surgical procedures?
• Feel intrigued by the challenge of managing multiple physiological and psychological problems in your critically ill surgical patients?
• Notice the excitement of your surgical team anticipating a “great case”?

If the answer to some of these questions is “Yes!”, a surgical career is probably right for you.

Umm…

No.
No.
No.
No.
No.

Damn, no surgery for me.

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I was told that delivering a baby would be “the most beautiful thing I’d ever see.” “Yeah, OK” I thought. I already knew from watching that stuff on TV that I most likely didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Bodily fluids squirting and splashing around just isn’t my forte.

Anyway, the time came and I was intentionally slow about putting on my protective gear. I wanted to be at the back of the pack, and at least watch once before I was thrown in head first. “Get up there and deliver the placenta” they said. “Actually, I’ll just watch that too if that’s cool” was my reply.

As I had initially thought, birth was nothing “beautiful” in my mind. Nine times out of ten we’d have some really dirty woman with no prenatal care spitting out their fourth, fifth or sixth child. Beautiful? Nah, nasty is more like it. There’s more blood and bodily fluids from a vaginal delivery than most major traumas. You better put your knee boots on or else you’ll be throwing away your shoes, socks and scrub pants.

With absolutely no intention of going into clinical medicine, who cares if I never delivered a baby while on my OB rotation? The honest truth is that I haven’t. Ever. I don’t care, either. I have no use for the knowledge of delivering a child. If a woman goes into labor close me I’ll just do what every other normal person would do and call 911. It’s pretty simple.

After watching a dozen or so vaginal deliveries, I have to say that they are far from beautiful. Cats, dogs, horses, cows and all other mammals have live births. Why is that a human birth is so “special?” More often than not, the women having the babies don’t deserve to be having them anyway. Instead of humanistic candy-ass liberals we need more mandatory tubal ligations.

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This is the actual evaluation that I submitted for my chief resident while on my 3rd year surgery clerkship. Nothing has been changed whatsoever. I was browsing through my comments today and happen to come across it. This asshole’s name has been removed for obvious reasons. He did, however, know who the evaluation was from at the time of submission.

[evaluation]
Typical surgeon mentality, he fits the bill well. Mad at the world because you lost a fellowship? Pissed because, well, your life really just sucks and you know it? After experiencing this rotation, I have to say that I hate surgeons. I would never, ever choose to work with them on a daily basis. My core surgery month was perhaps the worst month of my life. OB/GYN is a close contender.

I was told the following by Dr. XXXXX on day 2 of the rotation: “No independent thoughts, no independent actions.”

Well, I took this to heart and would not do anything unless specifically told (note: I was never asked to do anything, I was always told to do it). This meant not showing up for cases unless I was specifically told to do so. As expected, I was reprimanded by Dr. XXXXX for not being in the OR during a case. No independent thoughts, no independent actions: You didn’t specifically tell me to be in the OR during the case therefore I am not to think independently nor act independently. You reap what you sow. I didn’t want to be your retractor bitch anyway, so I win.

I’ll end this with a quote:

“Surgeons have little lenses attached to their glasses in the OR; it gives them a narrow view of the world. At least they wash their hands.” -Michael Gregor, M.D.

Sums it up well, I think.
[/evaluation]

This asshole is now an attending somewhere unknown to me “living the dream.”

Yay.

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I finished my last patient care rotation today. As alluded to in a recent post, I was doing a critical care rotation in the Shock-Trauma ICU. Holy shit, I’m glad that’s over. They even gave us tomorrow off. It’s a really awesome feeling to know that I wrote my last patient note and saw the last patient that I’ll ever see today. While rounding this afternoon, I checked off the patient names as we went down the list.

Counting down.

Now all that’s left is what I call “filler rotations.” You know, the electives that are classroom based with no patient interaction and you’re always home by noon. I can’t wait.

Based on my observations over the last month, I’ve come to a few conclusions. First, there is no doubt that the patients in the STICU are very sick - and I don’t particularly care for sick people. Second, most of the patients in the STICU are there because of their own stupidity. Sure, there are very sick innocent people in the STICU but they are generally the exception to the rule.

Here are some scenarios for a “stupid” STICU patient:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Sixteen days left on this shit-tastic rotation. Sixteen days. I count every one. Each morning as part of my routine, I like to look at the calendar and count down. It’s as if by some miracle I’ve hit the fast-forward button and all of a sudden I only have to be here 2 more days.

I like to let the gunners know how much time we have left on the rotation. You should see the look on their faces. I always make it a point to say it in front of their attending or resident too; that makes it more entertaining. I know one thing’s for fucking sure, they’ll never forget when they have to leave the rotation as long as I’m around.

Just last Friday, 3 hours of “learning” was spread out into 13.5 hours of my life. Academic medicine gets the medal for wasting time and money. Actually, they invented it. It’s pretty bad when you see the breakfast, lunch and dinner trays brought out to the patients and you don’t get to eat yourself.

I sit in the ICU listening to the beep, beep, beep of EKGs and IVs that have gotten kinked. Hour after hour, day after day.

Just another day in hell.

Sixteen more to go.

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