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| I wish you all.....a Heppe Christmas |
I showed up for work on Monday and Tuesday. Other interns decided not to but I didn't want to risk my vacation days being used for days I could easily be working. I think my colleagues were quiet happy that I showed up.
Monday morning, still during rounds, the chief attending told me I'd be assisting in his operations that day. This was after we had almost seen all of the patients and about everyone of them had labs ordered. The ward doctors had hoped I'd be around to draw all the blood for them, when the announcement came that I'd be in the OR, even before the morning meeting started, the realization dawned on them....and their facial reaction was a little bit priceless.
We had two operation to perform. The first was a smaller one that was finished relatively quickly. The patient had a hydrocele. A sack filled with fluid in the scrotum essentially. This patient had decided to walk around with it for years and thought three days before Christmas would be a fabulous time to have it operated.......
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| Great Idea sir...... |
After the fairly quick first operation came the second, somewhat lengthier one. The patient had had his bladder removed at the beginning of the year and was back to have a incisional hernia repaired. The chief attending and I were joined by the general surgeon that I helped operate Pat. X with. Since hernias aren't part of the field of urology but the patient's incision was due to an urological problem, the departments worked together. Additionally, the surgeons are friends and don't find much time outside of work to see each other so they use operations needing both specialties as opportunities. The chief attending and I were also interested in how hernias are being treated currently. Basically, a big sheet of material was inserted and sewn onto the abdominal inner wall.
After the operations, I returned to the ward for lunch and finishing up whatever needed to be done.
Monday night, I attended a basketball game with some of my girlfriends.
Tuesday, I was called back into the OR. This time however after rounds, morning meeting and blood drawing. This was the first time operating with this particular attending. We removed a testicle due to testicular cancer. The patient had noticed a swelling only two weeks earlier.
Public Health Announcement: Men, check your balls. Seriously, know what your testicles feel like and notice when something changes. It can go faster than you think. I have many guy friends, your guyss hands are in your pants 95% of the time anyways. Optimize that time ;)
I was allowed to leave after the operation was done in order to catch the train to Hamburg, where I spent the holidays with extended family.
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| My adorable little godchild |
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| Hamburg Rathaus |
In this time, I found a TV show to watch while babysitting my godchild. Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey. I fell in LOVE! I've always been fascinated with astronomy and even took a class back at UW-Madison. This show is beyond fantastic! The information, the graphics, the facts and the way it is hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson is just great. I read up a bit and found that it is a sequel to a 13 show series done by Carl Sagan. After I'm done with this series, I'll look at the older ones and see how far we've come. The show has resparked my inner super nerd. I would love to return to college after med school and take more classes in Astronomy, Biology and so much more. The world we live in, the present time, and we ourselves are so insignificant in comparison to the time of the universe. At the same time, this show portraits the stories of people who were so vital to our time and how the smallest of coincidences lead to where we are today. If you want your mind blown.....watch this show!
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| I'm in LOVE. I'm also a HUGE nerd. |
Its back to work tomorrow and Tuesday. We have off Wednesday and Thursday, which I will hopefully spend in the lab and library. New Years Eve will be a quiet one (as of now) with a good friend.
I wish you all a great new year of life, filled with happiness, success and most importantly health! I hope that our civilization calms down with all the havoc going on in the world and focuses on the good and comes together instead of driving itself apart. Happy New Year!
V
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