Occupation: Med Student year 3
Vitalis Signa
This past week I rotated through Ortho and had a few thoughts.
- So that’s what the bones look like in an alive person
- I retract like a boss. I also can hold up heavy legs and arms up for a good amount of time without any problems.
- Replacing joints reminds me of building a house or I assembling Ikea furniture.
- You know you’re in an Ortho case when you hear cursing left and right, inappropriate jokes, and loud rock or hip hop music
- Small bone particles and blood flying around the room. Make sure to wear your eye protection if you’re in the splash zone
- I swear, one of the tools they used looked like it was bought at Lowes or Home Depot
- After all of that, patients get so much better afterwards it’s pretty amazing.
- The rumors are true. I have no life during the weekdays but they are nice enough to give me weekends off which I spend studying and sleeping anyway.
- Breakfast for me is an energy drink and a Cliff bar. I power that down at like 5 AM before rounding on my patients.
- Speaking of food, my coat weighs 2 lbs more because of the snacks I stash away
- My hands feel really clean on days I spend in the OR.
- Speaking of the OR, I don’t get to do much but retract and cut sutures. Actually once they let me use the sucker and I sucked away that blood and irrigation like a boss. Another time I got to bovie some stuff which was kind of cool.
