2/13/09

In the past few weeks I've gotten the chance to observe many
surgeries. Jacob, our new roommate has been helping us with triage and
because it does not take three people to work there we take turns
doing other jobs or things. This includes watching surgeries and
shadowing the doctors. The experience has been absolutely great to
far.

There are a couple of surgeries that I have seen that have really
amazed me. The first was that of young man who came in with a
distended stomach. Because this hospital does not have the proper
imaging equipment the doctors were not sure exactly what the problem
was, but the figured it was a blockage in the bowel. It turned out
they were wrong and the surgeons, Dr. Kahlid and Dr. Johnson, were in
for a very big surprise. They did a midline incision and his insides
practically popped out of him. His whole digestive tract was filled to
bursting with air. The worst part of it seemed to be his colon and so
it was decided that it should be removed. Two and a half hours later a
four foot section of his 5 inch in diameter colon was removed. Wow was
that ever amazing to watch. Even Dr. Johnson had never seen anything
like it.

There also have been some other interesting operations. One was a boy
who had a perforation in his bowel from a tree that fell on him.
Another was a lady who had a liter of pus drained from a sore on her
back. Recently I also saw the the most disgusting operation I've seen
so far. A young lady came in with a absolutely horrendous infection in
her lower leg. They brought her into surgery to see if they would need
to amputate it. The smell was enough to make you vomit and that
combined with the sound of the steel instruments scraping away the
dead skin and pus from the bone put me to the point were I had to step
out of the room to catch some fresh air. Luckily there was some life
still in her leg so for now no amputation is needed.

This last week I also got my first chance to be a real surgeon. Well
not quite but for me it seemed that way.  A young man came in and he
had all the signs of appendicitis, but he did not have the money to
pay for the operation. When I found out about this I decided that I
could use some money I had gotten from the states for charity to help
the boy out. If not he might have been sent home, and appendicitis can
easily kill you if left for too long. So off to the operation room we
went, I went along to try and get some pictures to send back to the
donor. It was late afternoon and so there was no one to assist Dr.
Johnson in surgery. An assistant is not necessarily needed for and
appendectomy but Dr. Johnson asked me if I would like to help. Of
course I jumped at the chance.

Dr Johnson showed me how to wash and get all sterile and in my gown
and drapes and soon I was standing over the patient. It was amazing!
Just to be so close to what was going on. I proceeded to help by
mopping up blood with gauze, cutting sutures, holding the skin apart
with retractors and so on. It was the highlight of my time here so
far. The only complaint I had about it was the fact that my nose
itched terribly and I couldn't itch it! The young man has now been
discharged so I know now that I didn't do anything wrong too, which is
good news.

I now only have about one and a half months left here, and I'm very
much looking forward to more time in the OR. By for now.

nk