Surgery Reflections: Week 5 of 6

I forgot to post this last week. Maybe because I've been so busy.

I'm on Emergency General Surgery, known colloquially as EGS. It's known as the toughest of the tough surgery rotations that both residents and medical students can endure. The hours are brutal and the attending surgeons are nasty.

But so far, it's not been bad. In fact, I've kind of liked it. At times, loved it.

A typical day for me goes like this:

3:30am--Wake up
4am--To school
430am--Pre-rounding
530am--Rounding with team
7am--Consults, notes, conferences
730am--Cases start! Scrub in, hold instruments, retract tissues, get pimped in the OR
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.
.
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5pm--Rounding
6pm--Off!
6:30pm--Home
Eat, shower, read/study for shelf exam, prepare for next day's cases, make lunch for the next day...all in 1.5 hours.  
8:15sh pm--Sleep


So it's not the most conducive to social life or studying. But though the hours are long, they go by quickly. I've so far been to multiple gallbladder surgeries in which I've gotten to drive the laparoscopic camera (and get yelled at by the attendings for doing a "crap job" but eh, you gotta start somewhere right?).

More importantly, I've gotten a glimpse of how attending surgeons treat junior residents during the training process. Most of them are not kind. Most of the cuss and talk sternly. I've heard interns say "Sorry sir, sorry ma'am" in the OR over minor things or due to not doing things the attending's way. It's a frustrating and unfair culture, but that's how things are. At least on EGS.